Playing the union card
There are few political issues that bring all Polish politicians together, but the European Union (EU) seems to be one of them.
During the past few years, politicians across the political spectrum have trumpeted Poland's membership of the EU as a strategic goal.
In the last 12 months cross-party unity was reached with the formation of the European Law Committee in Parliament. Its task is to fast track through the Sejm laws to be brought into line with those made in Brussels. There can be few countries in Europe where the consensus on the EU seems to be as great as it is in Warsaw.
There are, of course, good reasons for the Poles to put up a united front, not least because many of them genuinely do want to become part of the European family of nations.
For too long in their history they have found themselves on the wrong side of the tracks, and suffered the price for the lack of a firm anchoring in the West. It's true that in terms of their security concerns, NATO membership has meant that the danger of Poland being isolated in any future European conflict has been eliminated, and that NATO membership means that the Poles can finally play a partnership role in security issues facing Europe.
But for many politicians, membership of the EU remains the Holy Grail of foreign policy politics. Likewise, the prime minister who delivers it can be assured that it is he who will go down in history as the man who brought Poland home to Europe, not Jerzy Buzek who oversaw NATO accession in 1999.
But how long will this Euroenthusiasm really last and how long before some politicians realize that striking a Euroskeptic tone may bring domestic political benefits. To be sure, it seems that many European governments seem to be openly inviting such an evolution in domestic political attitudes.
The long-lasting sparring between Poland and the EU over work rights for Polish labor in the EU after membership, or over the ability of EU citizens to own Polish land unhindered, are now legendary.
But beneath the surface of these front-page rows is a series of more detailed negotiations that in each case shows how determined the EU member states are to fight their corner against what Poles see as being in their own best interests. The best illustration of the frustrations the Poles feel is reflected in the now desperate repetition by Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek that 2003 remains the date Poland would like to join the EU. Why this remains a totem for Buzek remains unclear, when as embarrassingly exposed last week by head of the European Integration Committee, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski even his own officials view this as lacking in credibility. Saryusz-Wolski spoke publicly of 2004 as a more realistic date, whereas in private 2005 is openly discussed as the real deadline.
That may start to make Leszek Miller, leader of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), together with President Aleksander Kwasniewski, a little nervous. Both men, especially Kwasniewski, seemed to have targeted EU membership as a personal political goal during their term in office, which in both cases (assuming Miller becomes prime minister in October) will expire in autumn 2005. So only a year's slippage, and the grand prize may yet disappear from their grasp, too.
It remains to be seen how Miller as prime minister will treat negotiations with the EU once he realizes how demanding the requirements of membership for Poland are. There are, for example, complex issues of competition policy at stake, which cut across Miller's industrial and agricultural constituencies. Indeed, it may be the case that although he has shown delight in blaming Buzek for delays in negotiations, Miller may yet discover that his desire to go down in history as the prime minister who ushered in Polish EU membership will carry with it real costs in terms of electoral support.
Recent evidence shows that support for EU membership is not necessarily a guarantor of electoral success.
Another interesting development is the surprisingly high vote registered in opinion polls by the Polish Peasants Party (PSL), which is the only mainstream party openly running on a Euroskeptic ticket. Yet it has managed to outdistance not only UW, but also the ruling Solidarity Election Action (AWS) party in the opinion polls. PSL was given another boost last week with the news that Ryszard Bugaj, former leader of the Labor Union (UP), was to join its ranks.
Bugaj, although perceived as a loser in terms of his failure to prevent UP entering into an electoral coalition with SLD, remains a respected figure in the Left. In recent articles, he has articulated criticism of the EU not so much in cultural terms so beloved by the more extreme Right but in terms of its challenge to Polish economic sovereignty, in what seems almost a reflection of those voiced by many British Tories.
It remains to be seen how far this peculiar version of Polish Euroskepticism will go, but it remains significant that at this stage it has far overtaken traditional Polish Euroenthusiast parties such as UW.
Marek Matraszek is the Warsaw director of CEC Government Relations. He can be e-mailed at director@cec.com.pl (mailto:director@cec.com.pl)
