The EU has triggered a process that could potentially strip Poland of its voting rights in Brussels. This is a response to the Polish government’s efforts to assert party political control over the judiciary via “reforms” it claims are needed to purge the country’s courts of ex-communist judges.
The triggering of article 7, referred to in Brussels as the “atomic option”, is an unprecedented act against a member state, signalling the EU’s frustration with the intransigently anti-democratic course Warsaw has taken since the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party came to power in 2015. The European council president, Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, stated: “This decision results from the changes proposed by PiS, which will result in the government being above the law, rather than the law above the government.” A few hours later, Polish president Andrzej Duda, of PiS, defiantly signed into law the very changes Tusk and the EU expressed concerns about, enabling the ruling party stack the judiciary with political appointees.
Even Theresa May, usually quick to duck difficult issues on foreign trips, has promised to raise the UK’s “concerns” about the Polish government’s actions against the judiciary during her trip to Warsaw tomorrow. “We place importance on respect for the rule of law and we expect all our partners to abide by international norms and standards,” the PM’s spokesman said yesterday. Mateusz Morawiecki, the new prime minister appointed by PiS last week, will likely nod politely, assure May everything is fine, and proceed to ignore her just like Poland’s ruling party has ignored all international concerns raised about its anti-democratic policies in the past two years.
In fact, it is already trying to turn this situation to its advantage domestically by ramping up its propaganda machine, led by state-controlled media, to foster a siege mentality, suggesting Poland (not the current government, but the country) is being attacked by the EU just because it is asserting its sovereignty in national affairs. Party spokeswoman Beata Mazurek reacted to the EU’s decision by saying “this move does not strike at PiS, it strikes at Poland”. She also blamed the liberal opposition party, Civic Platform, which Law and Justice regularly portrays as a party of traitors working with Brussels against Polish interests. As the main state-controlled television station declared after the EU announcement: “Poland’s sovereign stance riles Berlin, Brussels and the opposition.”
Ever since Law and Justice came to power it has portrayed itself as a resistance movement fighting against the domination of Poland by powerful western nations and corporations that have been imposing their will on the country ever since its economic transformation from communism started in 1989. In a 2016 interview, Mateusz Morawiecki, the new prime minister appointed last week largely to deal with Brussels-Warsaw tensions, said “today we see more and more that the invisible hand of the market has weakened us [Poland] through these many, many years … to a huge extent, we are dependent on foreigners”.
It is the resentment at this feeling of dependence, of being subject to the will of foreigners, that is the driving emotion behind many of Law and Justice’s policies and its openly antagonistic rhetoric towards western Europe and EU officials. This is its way of publicly asserting its resistance to foreign domination. Considering Poland’s ruling party is currently supported by 40% of Poles, compared with the 17% who back its closest rival, the economically liberal Civic Platform. Law and Justice has clearly tapped into a national sense of resentment and desire to resist this perceived foreign domination.
Of course, there are other reasons it remains popular, most notably its unprecedentedly generous social spending, in complete contrast to former governments, which generally argued Poland couldn’t afford generous welfare like its richer western European peers. However, it is undeniable that Law and Justice has been able to inspire widespread feelings of national pride and dignity thanks to its public displays of assertiveness towards Brussels, which tap into national resentments and give many Poles the feeling, however illusory, of empowerment and control over their nation’s destiny. The parallels to Britain’s leave campaign, and its emphasis on “taking back control” from a bullying Brussels, draw themselves.
The big difference is that Law and Justice does not want Poland to leave the EU. At least not as long as it remains the largest beneficiary of EU funds. Between 2007 and 2013, Poland received roughly £60bn in EU development funds. Add to that the £76bn earmarked in the current 2014-20 budget timeframe and Poland will have received a windfall significantly exceeding the value of the post-second world war Marshall Plan for the whole of western Europe, calculated in today’s dollar figures.
So long as this cash keeps flowing, even the most anti-Brussels politicians in Poland will want to keep it in the EU. The only thing that would really worry Law and Justice would be a credible threat of these funds being withheld or even significantly delayed as that would jeopardise its spending plans. Moreover, were Poles to learn less money was flowing into the country directly due to Law and Justice’s policies, all that national pride could very quickly turn into anger at the ruling party for not being more pragmatic with Brussels.
In any case, Poland’s government does not need to be unduly worried about the triggering of article 7 for this is merely the first step in a long process that would eventually require the approval of all other EU members for actual sanctions to be imposed on Poland. Law and Justice’s equally authoritarian Hungarian ally, prime minister Viktor Orbán, has already vowed to veto any sanctions on Poland.
EU institutions are in a lose-lose situation here: doing nothing means Law and Justice continues dismantling democratic norms undisturbed, but reacting with the measures currently at Brussels’ disposal only serve to strengthen the party’s hand domestically and are thus unlikely to force it to change course.
Brussels clearly needs to rethink the rules by which the EU is governed. Those currently in place lack any realistic provisions for dealing with a member government that rubbishes the fundamental principles the union was built on … while continuing to take its cash, of course.
• Remi Adekoya is the former political editor of the Warsaw Business Journal
