Friday, August 24, 2007

Poland’s poll and the EU treaty

by Katinka Barysch

Poland’s early election may coincide with the last days of talks on the new EU Reform Treaty. Although the Kaczynskis are unlikely to reopen a deal agreed in June on the treaty's content, last minute political posturing for a home audience could delay the text being signed off.

Many Europeans were relieved when Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczyinski sacked his junior coalition partners in August. Kaczynski’s somewhat prickly and paranoid Law and Justice party (PiS) has been difficult enough to deal with. The inclusion of the arch-nationalist League of Polish Families (LPR) and Andrzej Lepper’s populist Self-Defence made it worse. This government has (perhaps understandably) blocked EU talks with Russia, (outrageously) used World War guilt to get more EU votes and (unwisely) threatened to veto the whole Reform Treaty. The spectre of Poland holding an election exactly when the inter-governmental conference (IGC) is supposed to wrap up the treaty talks will haunt many in foreign ministries across the EU.

The Polish parliament has postponed the final decision of whether and when to hold an early election to September 7th. The PiS minority government has little reason to hang on while the opposition Civic Platform (PO) would love to capitalise on its current poll lead. The earliest possible date –and the one most widely mooted – is October 21st. That is three days after EU leaders are supposed to sign the Reform Treaty.

The Kaczynskis (Jaroslaw and his twin brother Lech, who is president) would gain little from making the treaty an election issue. After all, they had claimed victory after the June summit. Although the other Europeans had refused to re-open talks on the EU voting system – Poland had insisted on sticking with the Nice formula, then pushed for a rule based on the square root of populations – they did agree to delay the introduction of the ‘double majority’ system until 2017. Polish officials afterwards grumbled that an agreement on blocking minorities was not sufficiently spelled out. But this is not a big enough issue to re-open the entire treaty package.

The PO does not like the June deal: it was PO leaders who had come up with the memorable “Nice or death” slogan and first pushed for the square roots system. But on the whole, the PO’s attitude towards the EU is similar to that of the PiS, although less anti-German (which is why Jaroslaw has recently been portraying the PO as Berlin’s puppet). To gain votes, the PO will want to stress what makes it different from the PiS, such as administrative competence, pro-business policies and more liberal attitudes towards social issues.

Neither the LPR nor Self-Defence can be sure to overcome the 5 per cent threshold for parliamentary representation. So they will run together, and do their utmost to steal nationalist and conservative votes from the more mainstream PiS and PO. Their eurosceptic rants and calls for a referendum on the treaty could put the PiS and the PO on the defensive. Despite the Poles’ generally pro-EU attitudes, many Polish party leaders appear to have convinced themselves that elections are won on the right.

The lone pro-European voice in the forthcoming election will be Aleksander Kwasniewski, the popular former president, and the Left and Democrats, a movement put together from bits of the former Communist party. Although the left almost faced political oblivion in the 2005 election, it is now rising steadily in the polls.

For most Poles, Europe is not a major concern at the moment. Life is good: the economy is growing at a brisk 7 per cent, unemployment is at a post-Communist low and EU money has started to flow in. In the latest Eurobarometer survey, almost 80 per cent of Poles said their country has benefited from being in the EU.

Nevertheless, Europe could become an issue in the election campaign, not least because the Commission is asking for radical restructuring of the iconic shipyard in Gdansk. To prevent the radical parties from benefiting from anti-EU sentiment, the Kaczynskis could seek to postpone final agreement on the treaty. This would be no disaster: signing it at the December summit would still leave EU members enough time to ratify it before the 2009 deadline. But the Portuguese presidency would be peeved (it wants to focus on Africa in December), as would be Gordon Brown who wants to get the treaty ratification out of the way as quickly as possible. Poland would once again be singled out as the EU’s troublemaker.

Those who are hoping for a fundamental shift in Poland’s EU stance after the election may be disappointed. The PO’s Europe policy would be more polished and constructive, but no less assertive when it comes to Poland’s national interest. Moreover, the PO is unlikely to gain an outright majority. Although the PO and the PiS agree on much, personal animosities would make ruling together fiendishly difficult. The PO and the Left, on the other hand, share a dislike of the Kaczynski twins. But it is doubtful whether this would be enough to overcome the PO’s suspicion of the former Communists, as well as programmatic differences. As long as Poland is ruled by unstable and often short-sighted coalitions, the EU will remain a tempting platform for politicians to showcase their nationalist credentials.

Katinka Barysch is chief economist at the Centre for European Reform.

3 comments:

Republikanin said...

You write: "Those who are hoping for a fundamental shift in Poland’s EU stance after the election may be disappointed. The PO’s Europe policy would be more polished and constructive, but no less assertive when it comes to Poland’s national interest."
And earlier: "The lone pro-European voice in the forthcoming election will be Aleksander Kwasniewski, the popular former president, and the Left and Democrats, a movement put together from bits of the former Communist party."
So I may be justified to conclude that being pro-European in Poland (and generally too) means for you being less assertive (in the more charitable meaning) and no assertive at all (in the less one).

It is time for... yes, for whom? Western experts, Western policymakers, Westerners generally to get used to NORMAL assertive policy and standard, national interest-first, POLITICS. Just like that of Great Britain, France, Germany etc.

During the last 50 years EU tried hard to break Western-European taboos. Now, it is time to break the taboos and stereotypes of Eastern Europe coined since the Enlightment(!) (e.g. Wolter, Frederic the Great etc.) to cold war (drastically disparate war and post-war experience).
Just notice what the deep and old German meaning-stereotype of the East is: dirt, anarchy, chaos, disorder, filth etc.
And Polish ones of West: progress, order, liberalism, capitalism, power.
They BOTH are dyed by last 200 yeard of European history!

You grossly underestimate the fact that cultural and historical memories of East and West are disparate. And this, untill now latent, differences are going to be more and more visible the more we get integrated. Because they are the base for the perception of interests!

The Western governments (EU15) force its softly-imperial point of view, under the guise of the language of integration to make more room for inner-15 bargainig. Poland happens to be the only big country in EU10 and this, joint with the historical stereotypes, rather poingnant for us, makes us more vulnerable for critique and our assertiva actions more perspicous.
The only, but very importaint, thing we can't use is European Bureaucracy - and that makes our summit-battles politics more frequent and annoying. I really regret it:)

But if the European Union is to mean "union" seriously (e.g. equall rules, duties and privildges for all), it has to integrate eastern points of view, whether Westerners like them or not.

Republikanin said...

[to editor: this is the final version:)]

You write: "Those who are hoping for a fundamental shift in Poland’s EU stance after the election may be disappointed. The PO’s Europe policy would be more polished and constructive, but no less assertive when it comes to Poland’s national interest."
And earlier: "The lone pro-European voice in the forthcoming election will be Aleksander Kwasniewski, the popular former president, and the Left and Democrats, a movement put together from bits of the former Communist party."
So I may be justified to conclude that being pro-European in Poland (and generally too) means for you being less assertive (in the more charitable meaning) and no assertive at all (in the less one).

It is time for... yes, for whom? Western experts, Western policymakers, Westerners generally to get used to NORMAL assertive policy and standard, national interest-first, POLITICS. Just like that of Great Britain, France, Germany etc.

During the last 50 years EU tried hard to break Western-European taboos. Now, it is time to break the taboos and stereotypes of Eastern Europe coined since the Enlightenment(!) (e.g. Volter, Frederic the Great etc.) to cold war (drastically disparate war and post-war experience).
Just notice what the deep and old German meaning-stereotype of the East is: dirt, anarchy, chaos, disorder, filth etc.
And Polish stereotypes of West: progress, order, liberalism, capitalism, power. But wasn't the West reactionary, socialistic, statist, pathetically pacifistic?
They BOTH are biased and dyed by last 200 years of European history!

You grossly underestimate the fact that cultural and historical memories of East and West are disparate. And this, until now latent, differences are going to be more and more visible the more we get integrated. Because they are the base for the perception of interests!

The Western governments (EU15) force its softly-imperial point of view, under the guise of the language of integration to make more room for inner-15 bargaining. Poland happens to be the only big country in EU10 and this, joint with the historical stereotypes, rather poignant for us, makes us more vulnerable for critique and our assertive actions more perspicous.
The only, but very important, thing we can't use is European Bureaucracy - and that makes our summit-battles politics more frequent and annoying. I really regret it:)

But if the European Union is to mean "union" seriously (e.g. equal rules, duties and privileges for all), it has to integrate eastern points of view, whether Westerners like them or not.

[Post scriptum on inadequateness of stereotypes:
There is deeply embedded in Polish culture 500-years tradition of personal liberty (more then in England!) There is inheritance of ancient republicanism, tolerance for dissidents and 3 millions of Jews (somehow, the hec, they survived here for 800 years and the Polish anti-Semits were, in fact, right wing progressives, followers of Western Darwinism, just like their Zionistic counterparts!). Adam Smith was widely read in XVIIIth century Poland, the seeds of capitalism were sawed but XIX century deprivation of statehood made us the nation without modern statist and capitalist culture. Polish structural poverty begins in XIXth century and Poland lags behind Western Europe as industrial periphery because of Russian-, Prussian- and Habsburg hegemon's backwardness. We were the one of the main battlefields of XXth century (10-mln citizens loss in two wars, including the loss of 70% of national cultural and financial elites and material substance) and then industrial satelite of Soviet Union for 45 years. That is not justification, this is explanation. The deep effects of such path dependence are not going to disappear in few decades and Polish strategic interests cannot lie in accommodating silently to German or British policies which are designed for thoroughly different stage of development]

Anonymous said...

Dear jfs, I think the assertivity of some (not the all of them) western member countries is a natural product of their contribution to the EU. Assertivity cannot just be the product of a blind and deaf behaviour within negotiation. As long as Poland will not provide true contribution to the EU (yes, above all, in economic terms) reamining a net recipient, well, the assertivity of its representatives will not be taken very seriously by other members. My father was saying: "As long as I pay the food you find on the table, democracy won't be an option in this home".