Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition (KO) and Jarosław Kaczyński’s Law and Justice (PiS) are facing their third election battle in only a matter of months. The former has made security, Russia, and the choice between East and West the main theme of its European election campaign. PiS, in contrast, seeks to highlight the dangers for Poland of the EU’s Green Deal and Migration Pact.
Donald Tusk came back to power last December, spearheading a leftist-liberal government that is fully aligned with the EU. He has revitalised the so-called Weimar Triangle, a close cooperation of Poland, France and Germany, neglecting his Central European partners—a sign that Tusk’s loyalty lies with the western states. The new prime minister—the former head of the European Council and the centre-right-liberal European People’s Party—has been rewarded for his commitment: Poland has started receiving EU funds that were previously frozen for so-called rule-of-law violations during the administration of the previous conservative, EU-critical PiS cabinet.
The mere promise of retracting some PiS-implemented judicial reforms was enough for the European Commission to unblock the funds, not even waiting for the new Polish government to actually take concrete steps in return for EU money. (Another stigmatised conservative government, the Fidesz cabinet in Hungary, has called this “blatant double standards.”) EU institutions have also been unfazed by Tusk’s witch hunt of his political opponents: the takeover of the country’s public broadcaster, police raids in the homes of former government officials, and the jailing of two PiS lawmakers have all been ignored by the western liberal elites.
“Poland has come to resemble a banana republic. Tusk doesn’t care about the law or about the constitution at all. He rules through parliamentary resolutions and ignores statutory law,” Ryszard Legutko, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for PiS recently told The European Conservative. He said:
The aim is to eliminate from public space every person and every project that has some links to the Law and Justice party. Ultimately, I think, Tusk wants to surround it with a cordon sanitaire completely. To take control of everything.
Despite becoming the largest party in last October’s parliamentary elections, Law and Justice was unable to continue its eight-year long governance, as it couldn’t form a majority coalition. The result came as a sigh of relief for the Brussels elite, which was unhappy with Warsaw’s sovereigntist approach and conservative stance on issues such as migration, gender ideology, and abortion.
Local elections held in April of this year echoed the results of the parliamentary elections—with PiS remaining the strongest force in politics—and according to the latest opinion polls, the political landscape hasn’t changed much since. The two alliances formed around PiS and Tusk’s KO will both receive around 30% of the votes at the European elections on Sunday, June 9th, while three other alliances are hovering around the 10% mark—two of them are Tusk’s coalition partners, the other one is the right-wing eurosceptic Konfederacja. In other words: PiS and KO’s role reversal hasn’t had a major impact on the electorate.
In his EU election campaign, Tusk has focused attention on Poland’s security, with the government recently announcing a massive defence infrastructure to be built along the country’s eastern border with Belarus and Russia. The prime minister has framed the upcoming election as a choice between a safe future in a country at the heart of the EU or a more perilous one if Law and Justice wins.
“Donald Tusk’s main messages are that Law and Justice have a special connection with Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, and that he [Tusk] is a proponent of a stronger Europe,” Paweł Lisicki, editor-in-chief of conservative weekly, Do Rzeczy told The European Conservative.
Tusk has falsely accused the opposition PiS, one of Ukraine’s most staunch supporters, of governing in accordance with Moscow’s interests for many years. He has criticised the party for establishing strong ties to European parties, such as Fidesz in Hungary, that have been labelled “pro-Russian” by European liberals for advocating an anti-war stance.
Tusk told an audience on Tuesday:
Listen, believe me. Over there in the Kremlin, for them (the Russian government), the possible political capture of Brussels would be more important than the capture of Kharkiv. This fight over who will rule in Poland, and now the fight over who will rule in Europe, is also a fight to prevent war from entering our borders.
While suggesting that Moscow is not only interested in capturing areas of Ukraine but also influencing decision-making in Brussels, the prime minister added: “I, for one, am very worried about the outcome of these elections. I would personally very much like to be with Europe, and I can’t imagine a different future.”
PiS, on the other hand, argues that Tusk is the subservient one, complying with everything Germany and the EU are asking of him, such as agreeing to an abolition of member states’ veto rights on foreign, security, and fiscal issues, and taking in migrants under the EU’s recently adopted Migration Pact—accusations that Tusk denies.
“The current government behaves as though it were just an instrument, a tool of the European Commission, a sort of extended arm of the activities of the EU. I believe the government represents the interests of Brussels more than that of the Polish state,” Paweł Lisicki argues. Elaborating on his views, he adds:
The government has declared it will introduce laws in connection with gender ideology and LGBT rights. It is going to introduce a hate speech law. It has officially denounced the EU’s Migration Pact, but I believe they will eventually accept it. Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski recently declared that the member states’ right to veto could be given up in some cases (e.g. with regards to accepting Ukraine into the EU, and sanctions against Russia). All their rhetoric focuses on how Poland should comply with Brussels.
Meanwhile, PiS has been busy denouncing both the Migration Pact and the EU’s Green Deal which thousands of farmers all across Europe, including Poland, have been protesting against in recent months, saying that the deal and consequent regulations are endangering their livelihood. Polish farmers and truck drivers have also been blockading entry points at the Ukrainian border, demonstrating against unfair competition and the influx of cheap Ukrainian agricultural products.
While the European elections don’t have a direct impact on national politics, the vote in a few days’ time will reflect the mood in a country that is politically divided, and dealing with many geopolitical challenges.
