Opinion: Playing the Turkish Card

The President's unambiguous and uncritical declaration astounded not only Europe, but was also a surprise in Poland. Turkey's President Ahmet Necdet Sezer had rarely heard such praise for his country's efforts to join the Union as that which came from the mouth of the Polish President.

Courage or gaffe?

For several years Polish foreign policy has supported Turkish aspirations for membership of the European Union. However, it had never been articulated so clearly. Was Kaczyński taking a courageous stand, or was it a gaffe? The Polish press did not comment positively on the President's declaration. "In my opinion, Turkey does not deserve to be courted and invited with a bow to a community of more-so or less-so, but after all, civilized states," retorted Eliza Michalik, a right-wing press commentator, usually sympathetic to the Kaczyński brothers.

The left-wing press, which is especially sensitive to human rights issues, the status of women and the observance of minority rights, wrote that Turkey cannot be accepted into the Union before it starts to observe the democratic principles which apply in the European family. Left-wing commentators pointed out that the Turkish government has not settled the Cypriot question, has made little progress in legal reforms and has failed to issue a clear-cut condemnation of the genocide of the Armenians.

Change of view

Polish public opinion is rather confused by this expression of unambiguous support for Turkey. In contrast to many Western states, where for a long time there has been  constructive public debate about Turkey's accession to the EU, in Poland this subject has been raised only sporadically, and then only in narrow academic and intellectual circles. Moreover, Polish society - quite nationally homogeneous - has yet to come into contact with the question of a Muslim minority. To all intents and purposes, Poles are unfamiliar with the benefits as well as the problems of a multicultural society.

Polish diplomacy has long advocated expanding the Union first and foremost through the accession of other countries of the former Soviet Union, in particular Ukraine and Georgia. For the government in Warsaw, Turkey was too exotic and far away, and Poland has no economic, social or strategic interests in Turkey's accession.

Talking turkey

So whence the sudden support from President Kaczyński? I fear that the reason is not substantive but rather banal. Playing the Turkish card was intended to achieve a definite propaganda effect.

Above all, Lech Kaczyński thumbed his nose at German Chancellor Angela Merkel. At the very beginning of Germany's assumption of the EU presidency, Merkel indicated that the matter of Turkish accession would be shelved for the time being. It may be shelved for a lot longer than that.

Since democratization in 1989, Poland's relations with Germany have never been as tense as they have become since the Kaczyński brothers came to power. It is therefore difficult to resist the idea that Lech Kaczyński's declaration of will in Ankara was a move to emphasize that Poland has a totally different stance to Germany regarding Europe's most strategic issues.

Inept diplomacy

The crisis in Polish diplomacy is not just limited to relations between Warsaw and Berlin. During the last year Polish relations with our other large neighbor - Russia - have significantly worsened, and the warm and fruitful relations with Ukraine, which were carefully cultivated by previous governments, have also stagnated. Good relations with distant Turkey may somewhat obscure people's view of the ineptitude of Polish diplomacy in other areas of crucial importance for our country. The populist and nationalist part of the Kaczyńskis' electorate, unaware of the real context of Turkey's membership in the Union, may proudly imagine the Polish locomotive pulling the Turkish train into the European station with lots of steam and whistles.

Joanna Wóycicka has been a commentator on international relations and Polish foreign policy since 1991. She is the former head of the foreign section of the Życie Warszawy and Życie newspapers and the former head of the Foreign Department at the Polish Press Agency (PAP)