Post by Bozur on Mar 9, 2006 17:43:59 GMT -5
New Polish Chief a Skeptic on Integrated Europe
By JUDY DEMPSEY
Published: March 9, 2006
BERLIN, March 8 — When Poland was negotiating its entry to the European Union, its diplomats indicated that joining a politically integrated Europe was the best way to protect national interests. This belief in the power of community was shared by the other aspiring countries from the former Soviet bloc, which as a group greatly expanded the union in May 2004.
"Poland was a strong supporter of more integration," said Piotr Buras, a European policy specialist at the Willy Brandt Center in Wroclaw, in southern Poland. He said Poles believed that small and medium members would be defended against bigger interests.
But President Lech Kaczynski arrived in Berlin on Wednesday bringing a deeply altered vision of Europe: it is a nationalist, Euroskeptic vision, at odds with the policy of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and her government.
Mr. Kaczynski has overseen a revision of policy in Warsaw since winning the presidency last October. His conservative government, while supporting European Union enlargement to include Ukraine and Belarus, no longer accepts the idea of a deeper and more integrated Europe.
He made the point last month in a state visit to Paris, telling the newspaper Le Figaro bluntly: "What most interests Poles is what will become of Poland. It's the same in France."
His brother Jaroslaw, who leads the governing Law and Justice Party, put it even more starkly. "The defense of our national interests will be on the agenda daily, and our partners should take note of this," he said.
Those partners have already experienced muscle flexing from Warsaw. Since Lech Kaczynski took office, Poland has tried to block a banking deal, prompting European officials to threaten a lawsuit. Poland also jolted its European neighbors this year when it nearly foiled efforts to keep sales taxes low for certain important services.
Aleksander Kwasniewski, his predecessor, supported the European constitution that French and Dutch voters rejected last year. Poland's view on that issue has changed. Ryszard Schnepf, foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, recently told the newspaper Rzeczpospolita that a new European constitution was unnecessary. The Nice Treaty, adopted before enlargement and still in force, would suffice, he said. The treaty gives Poland generous voting rights but is widely viewed as impractical for a bloc that has expanded to 25 members from 15.
Mr. Kaczynski is visiting when Mrs. Merkel, also a conservative and newly elected, is seeking ways to revive the constitution and restore Germany's influence in the European Union. Over the past month, Mrs. Merkel and her advisers have started preparations to make such a revival a main topic for Germany when it takes over Europe's rotating presidency next January. The idea is that, with the support of other member states, the new constitution could be made shorter and more focused on principles.
But Mrs. Merkel is unlikely to find an ally in Mr. Kaczynski, who appears more determined to defend Poland's sovereignty than to cede powers to Europe.
Janusz Onyszkiewicz, leader of Poland's opposition Democratic Party and deputy chairman of the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, says two conflicting attitudes toward the European Union exist in Poland.
"One approach, which supports integration, is to safeguard our interests by being a constructive partner, working in the framework of the E.U. and sacrificing short-term interests for longer terms ones," he said.
The other view, represented by the new government and president, "is to fight for our demands and to throw our weight around," he said. "This is not a view that supports further integration, not even a common foreign and security policy."
Polish analysts say this shift in policy resembles a "Gaullist" view of the world in which national interests take precedence over European interests. Mr. Buras, of the Willy Brandt Center, said Mr. Kaczynski was "very much a Gaullist" with a conservative view of the world.
"This new government no longer believes that Poland is a small country that needs the support of the" European Commission "or that it needs partners to get things done or achieve our goal," he said. "It is a kind of moral superiority influenced by history — especially the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 against the Nazis and World War II — which says Poland should be strong and stick to its own vision."
By JUDY DEMPSEY
Published: March 9, 2006
BERLIN, March 8 — When Poland was negotiating its entry to the European Union, its diplomats indicated that joining a politically integrated Europe was the best way to protect national interests. This belief in the power of community was shared by the other aspiring countries from the former Soviet bloc, which as a group greatly expanded the union in May 2004.
"Poland was a strong supporter of more integration," said Piotr Buras, a European policy specialist at the Willy Brandt Center in Wroclaw, in southern Poland. He said Poles believed that small and medium members would be defended against bigger interests.
But President Lech Kaczynski arrived in Berlin on Wednesday bringing a deeply altered vision of Europe: it is a nationalist, Euroskeptic vision, at odds with the policy of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and her government.
Mr. Kaczynski has overseen a revision of policy in Warsaw since winning the presidency last October. His conservative government, while supporting European Union enlargement to include Ukraine and Belarus, no longer accepts the idea of a deeper and more integrated Europe.
He made the point last month in a state visit to Paris, telling the newspaper Le Figaro bluntly: "What most interests Poles is what will become of Poland. It's the same in France."
His brother Jaroslaw, who leads the governing Law and Justice Party, put it even more starkly. "The defense of our national interests will be on the agenda daily, and our partners should take note of this," he said.
Those partners have already experienced muscle flexing from Warsaw. Since Lech Kaczynski took office, Poland has tried to block a banking deal, prompting European officials to threaten a lawsuit. Poland also jolted its European neighbors this year when it nearly foiled efforts to keep sales taxes low for certain important services.
Aleksander Kwasniewski, his predecessor, supported the European constitution that French and Dutch voters rejected last year. Poland's view on that issue has changed. Ryszard Schnepf, foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, recently told the newspaper Rzeczpospolita that a new European constitution was unnecessary. The Nice Treaty, adopted before enlargement and still in force, would suffice, he said. The treaty gives Poland generous voting rights but is widely viewed as impractical for a bloc that has expanded to 25 members from 15.
Mr. Kaczynski is visiting when Mrs. Merkel, also a conservative and newly elected, is seeking ways to revive the constitution and restore Germany's influence in the European Union. Over the past month, Mrs. Merkel and her advisers have started preparations to make such a revival a main topic for Germany when it takes over Europe's rotating presidency next January. The idea is that, with the support of other member states, the new constitution could be made shorter and more focused on principles.
But Mrs. Merkel is unlikely to find an ally in Mr. Kaczynski, who appears more determined to defend Poland's sovereignty than to cede powers to Europe.
Janusz Onyszkiewicz, leader of Poland's opposition Democratic Party and deputy chairman of the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, says two conflicting attitudes toward the European Union exist in Poland.
"One approach, which supports integration, is to safeguard our interests by being a constructive partner, working in the framework of the E.U. and sacrificing short-term interests for longer terms ones," he said.
The other view, represented by the new government and president, "is to fight for our demands and to throw our weight around," he said. "This is not a view that supports further integration, not even a common foreign and security policy."
Polish analysts say this shift in policy resembles a "Gaullist" view of the world in which national interests take precedence over European interests. Mr. Buras, of the Willy Brandt Center, said Mr. Kaczynski was "very much a Gaullist" with a conservative view of the world.
"This new government no longer believes that Poland is a small country that needs the support of the" European Commission "or that it needs partners to get things done or achieve our goal," he said. "It is a kind of moral superiority influenced by history — especially the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 against the Nazis and World War II — which says Poland should be strong and stick to its own vision."