EU summit - Poland gets its way until 2017

When the summit ended shortly before dawn on Saturday, many foreign commentators pointed out that the Kaczyński brothers were not out to destroy the EU, only that they were simply tough bargainers. "The summit in Brussels, which surprisingly turned out to be a huge Polish success, has shown how long and difficult road the Kaczyński brothers have travelled. They changed from Euroskeptics to tough, but at the same time responsible EU players," said Konrad Schuller of German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. According to Rzeczpospolita, the Polish side were divided into two groups: fierce defenders of the square root system and realists. The first group was run by Marek Cichocki and Ewa Ośniecka-Tamecka, while the other one by Jan Tombiński, Foreign Affairs Minister Anna Fotyga and EU Commissioner Danuta Huebner. "We analyzed all the alternative solutions, as we knew that we are isolated. I took part in preparing different scenarios and presented them to the [Polish] President," said Tombiński. However, the EU authorities admit unofficially that the Polish side did not even propose the square root system during the summit in Brussels. "Poland was not successful at the summit, on the contrary it capitulated," said PO's deputy Jan Rokita. (Rzeczpospolita, pp. A1, A2, A6, A7, A9; Gazeta Wyborcza, pp. 1, 2-5, 18-20; Dziennik, pp. 1, 2, 3, 4, 16-17) M.M.