State of the union

Joining the European Union is high on the new government’s agenda, but junior members could spoil the party.
By : Jeffrey Sparshott

   If a referendum on joining the European Union (EU) were held tomorrow, Andrzej Lepper would vote “no.”

   “We are not against the EU,” said the leader of Self-Defense (SO), the third-biggest political party in Parliament. “We only want to be considered partners, and not to be used as a 40-million (person) market for Western production surplus.”

   Lepper, well-tanned and well-known for grabbing attention with unorthodox demonstrations, is just one of a skeptical new crop of legislators who will keep a wary eye on EU negotiations since Sept. 23 elections recast the Sejm and Senate’s political landscape.

   The newly elected and installed government, led by the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), has pledged to make EU accession a priority, with Prime Minister Leszek Miller taking personal control over European integration and naming a new negotiator to speed along talks. And overall, pro-EU forces hold a decisive majority in the legislature. But new voices of dissent – absent from Parliament the past four years – are likely to create more charged debates and more public calls against EU accession on unpopular or, in some cases on any, terms.

   “In the last Parliament there was no political party that was against the European Union, so there was no voice against the European Union,” said Roman Giertych, vice president of the League of Polish Families (LPR), the smallest party in government. “The public didn’t know what the EU is and what is dangerous. During the next four years of this Parliament, we will be the voice of the people who are against the EU.”

   Giertych admitted that his party, with only 38 seats in the 460-seat lower house of Parliament, will have little influence on SLD-led negotiations. But he expects a referendum on EU accession to be close and his party’s pending anti-EU campaign to tip the balance against joining.

   Pro European camp

   While Lepper is guarded, Giertych’s party hostile and another party, Law and Justice (PiS) not an unqualified supporter of the EU, the majority of Parliament still falls squarely in the pro-Europe camp. SLD is by far the most powerful party, with 216 seats in the Sejm. Its junior coalition partner, the Peasants Party (PSL), has some concerns about direct payments to farmers under the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP) but also publicly supports accession. And Civic Platform (PO), the biggest opposition party with 65 seats, is unabashedly in favor of joining the 15-nation club.

   The one party that ran on a rabidly anti-EU platform, Alternatywa, did not win a place in either chamber.

   On top of support from lawmakers, analysts are not too worried that Poland’s citizens will be turned against the EU.

   “Support for EU enlargement is pretty stable and pretty high,” said Moritz Schularick, an economist at Deutsche Bank Research and an author of its EU Enlargement Monitor. “There has been no meaningful poll showing opinion below 50% and there is no danger the whole thing will change completely and everyone will turn against the EU.”

   About 55% of Poles would vote for joining the EU if a referendum were called immediately, according to Poland’s Public Opinion Research Center (CBOS). That is down significantly from 80% support in 1996, but pro-EU numbers have held steady at more than half since 1999.

   “A certain increase of euro-skepticism has been recorded among Poles during the last six months,” the CBOS survey cautions. “Although the number of supporters of Poland’s integration with the European Union (55%) did not change in March, the percentage of its opponents grew to its highest point so far (30%).”

   And clearly a referendum is a tricky thing. In June, Ireland voted on an EU accord – the Nice Treaty – that would pave the way for adding new countries to the union and consequently eastward enlargement. Voters rejected the measure, throwing the treaty into doubt and jeopardizing the EU’s plans. And this happened in a country where, according to an October Eurobarometer report, support for enlargement is 59%, second highest in the EU and higher than in several candidate countries. Could Polish public opinion be as fickle?

   “I see danger if the (Polish) government doesn’t manage to signal quickly and strongly that there can’t be any doubt about finishing negotiations by 2002 and joining the EU as quickly as possible,” Schularick said. “Otherwise, voices will be louder than they should be. There is some sense of uncertainty and it is important now that the government says it’s clear what we want and where we’re headed.”

   Miller and his colleagues have made it fairly clear.

   “We are for joining the EU as fast as possible,” said Ewa Freyberg, an SLD deputy and EU expert. Poland can wrap up negotiations by the end of 2002 and should be ready for membership in 2004, party officials note.

   Well before that, Poland has to face some difficult issues. This week chief negotiators will meet in Brussels for the first formal round of negotiations at the ambassadorial level since the new legislators took their seats. The outcome of these and future talks are certain to be closely watched by the opposition.

   Lepper said he plans to sit on the Sejm’s European Integration Committee, which oversees Poland’s legislative effort to bring national laws in line with EU rules and regulations, as well as Polish-EU relations.

   “I’ll be a member of European Integration Committee,” he told the Business Journal. “The negotiations will be much tougher.”

   He criticized Poland’s outgoing government, saying that officials have not adequately informed society what is going on.

   “They’ve been negotiating too slowly and too weakly,” he said. “They act as if we were worse, stupid, beggars.”

   If negotiations start to go Poland’s way, in fact, SO might be a party to speeding up talks.

   “If the question of land sales is solved ... we want to join the EU now,” Lepper said. “If there is labor force migration, if Polish industry and agriculture production force is used in 100%, Self-Defense might even speed up that process.”

   Land issues

   The maverick legislator touched on some of the most prickly issues for Poland and the EU during the past months. With land sales, Poland is asking for an 18-year transition before foreigners could buy agricultural or forest land while the EU has countered with a maximum seven-year transition. On free movement of labor, Poland wants its citizens to have the right to work anywhere in the EU immediately on accession, while the EU has proposed a transition of up to seven years. With industrial and agricultural production, Lepper is worried that Poland will face quotas or restrictions imposed on many sectors in the EU. And the most financially daunting issue is agriculture, where the EU wants Poland to gradually become part of an elaborate system of subsidies but Poland wants full participation upon accession.

   The fight over agriculture could see SO and PSL vying for voter attention, though it is too soon to see how PSL’s position in the governing coalition will affect negotiations, analysts said.

   “It doesn’t make things easier that’s for sure,” Deutsche Bank’s Schularick said. “There are two options. One, the Peasants Party develops into a tough group for Polish farmers making the whole thing much harder for Poland and the SLD. Or the Peasants Party, confronted with a more radical group … develops into a modern and modest pro-European peasants party.”

   Czesław Siekierski, a PSL deputy from Kielce and a member of the European Integration Committee, said that if Poland enters the EU as an equal partner, the country’s agriculture would profit. “The major concerns are the conditions of our accession,” he said. “The point is to become a partner with equal rights, treated just like the other EU members.”

   That includes immediate access to common agricultural policy (CAP) funds – otherwise Polish farmers will not be able to compete with EU counterparts, he said. And internal regulations on land sales could allow Poland to reduce the proposed transition period but “that period should be long enough to equalize the prices of ground in Poland and other EU countries and to let purchasing power of our farmers grow,” he noted.

   “Our priority has always been the good of the country and its citizens, that means economic development and improvement of living standards,” Siekierski said. “We consider EU integration as a good way to achieve that.”

   Agriculture – which constitutes a small portion of Poland’s gross domestic product but occupies a large chunk of its workforce – is bound to be one of the most important issues affecting EU accession.

   “It’s about money,” said Olaf Osica, a research fellow at Warsaw’s Center for International Relations. “It sounds bad, but it’s about money. But PSL and Self-Defense have to see that it’s also about improving the standard of living.”

   Poland’s government estimated that, from 2003 to 2006, joining the EU would cost the state budget Ä2.5 billion to integrate local agriculture with Western neighbors; the report also showed that the country should receive Ä10.2 billion in the same period. Structural funds, used to help develop poorer regions, would bring Ä19.1 billion while outlays would be Ä3 billion, the report said.

   While the figures are attractive for Poland, the formulas used to calculate them might change by the time Poland becomes a member. Altogether, candidate countries could blow a Ä11 billion per year hole in the EU’s agriculture budget, according to some estimates, a proposition that current EU members would find difficult or impossible to support. So the EU is looking at ways to reform its system of subsidies and some Polish officials are discounting any potential income.

   “The point is not to get a lot of money from the EU because that’s not going to happen,” Lepper said. “The priority is to protect Polish agriculture.”

   Other parties in opposition have different concerns.

   Lech Kaczyński, head of PiS, before elections said in an Internet chat that he would vote yes in a referendum on joining the EU. “But as a politician I’d subordinate to the nation’s decision if it was different,” he said. “I want to say that I’d vote against if Poland was to be a second category EU member.”

   LPR is somewhat concerned with ideological and moral issues, but mostly worried about political and economic domination.

   “Our political arguments against the EU are connected with the fear of Germans,” Giertych said. “Germany is a very powerful state, economically, politically, militarily and so on. We are afraid that accession to the EU would join Poland to a greater Germany.”

   PO’s press office referred questions to Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, former head of the Office for European Integration (UKIE) and a member of the new party, but Saryusz-Wolski refused repeated requests for an interview.

   Analysts caution that EU issues were in the background during the run-up to Sept. 23’s election and membership of opposition parties can be divided.

   “If you look at Self-Defense and LPR, the EU is not in the foreground,” Osica said. “They are examples of classic protest movements. They are against everything that was achieved in the last four years. So I would not say that this Parliament will be much more skeptical (than the last).”

   He noted that PiS and LPR’s membership is drawn largely from Solidarity Election Action (AWS), the former government leader that was drummed out of Parliament because of rising unemployment, corruption scandals, budget mismanagement and a worsening economic outlook – but not because of its EU stance. AWS was heavily pro-EU and pushed for quick membership.

   Successful EU accession, however, could tip the next election.

   “If negotiations end up a success this will secure Miller and his coalition a re-election (in 2005),” Osica said. “I think negotiations will end up a success.”