Poland is having a moment. Its roles as the front line adversary of Russian bellicosity and the chief recipient of war refugees from Ukraine have coincided with previously unimaginable economic dynamism, and the world has noticed.
This spring, it seemed that all major English-language outlets took turns profiling the shining light on the Vistula. Among them, the Washington Post dubbed the country the “new center of gravity” in Europe, and The Telegraph billed it “Europe’s next superpower.”
The present geopolitical realities driving this attention have wrought odd political consequences for the Poles. Poland’s relations with its longtime friend Hungary have been strained like never before in the post-communist era. Ursula von der Leyen, often considered antagonistic towards Poles in the past, has issued numerous statements expressing “solidarity with Poland.” Warsaw, which had previously hosted a high-profile visit from Republican candidate Mitt Romney and witnessed President Donald Trump’s signature foreign-policy moment, recently welcomed President Joe Biden twice in less than a year.
Last month, Hungarian foreign-policy expert Attila Demkó described Poland’s geopolitical stance in this way:
[Poland] is not a U.S. puppet, nor does it have full confidence in the Biden administration, and it would have even less confidence in a potential Republican president. Warsaw surpasses Washington: it often tries to dictate rather than follow. But Poland is not crazy, it just sees a different future and different threats than Hungary.
This would have been an unthinkable assessment just two years ago.
This unorthodox state of affairs might now be regressing toward the mean. Perhaps Poland’s Atlanticist bill is coming due.
As the White House begins to deviate cautiously from its long-stated aim of total victory in Ukraine, the stream of unbridled goodwill between Washington and Warsaw seems likely to subside. Evidence surfaced last month in the form of an old-fashioned controversy encompassing politicians, elections, and Russian interference.
Poland’s Sejm passed a provision authorizing a commission to investigate Russian interference in Polish government affairs from 2007-22. Incriminating findings promised to result in a decade-long ban on holding public office. A veto effort in the senate failed, and President Andrzej Duda signed the bill into law.
Critics immediately perceived a threat to former prime minister and president of the European Council, and current opposition leader, Donald Tusk, ahead of the November parliamentary elections, and duly branded the law “Lex Tusk.” (The European People’s Party, of which Tusk was leader until 2021, is undergoing a European criminal investigation for corruption.) Tusk himself called the law “one of the most dramatic moments of our Polish democracy after 1989,” and called for a protest march in Warsaw on June 4. In a theatrical political display, he appeared in the Sejm on the day of the vote and told journalists, “I wanted to see the faces of those who once again smashed the constitution.”
In a renewal of the political landscape from before the Ukraine war, the European Parliament called an emergency session to adjudicate the matter. Bloomberg pressed Duda on the issue in an interview. The president in turn asserted he could clear up the matter with Biden. Duda later proposed an amendment including a significant decrease in powers of the commission.
Dialogue in Poland after the march on June 4th focused on the number of attendees. March organizers from Tusk’s Civic Platform (PO) party and Tusk himself claimed over half-a-million participants, while Warsaw police sources estimated between 100,000-150,000.
Overseas, The Atlantic proclaimed, “Poland Is Not Ready to Accept a New McCarthyism.” NBC News asserted the demonstrators “show support for democracy.” The Guardian headlined, “[H]undreds of thousands march against right-wing populist government.” Thus, English-speakers and Polish readers of foreign news encountered only a very specific telling of events.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, of the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), stated, “It makes me laugh a bit when old foxes, who have been in politics for many, many years, organize an anti-government march and present it as a spontaneous civil protest.” He cited local government officials in claiming PO headquarters directed mayors and other local officials to transport PO activists and government employees to the march. “Let’s call it what it is … a march of PO activists, voters, and supporters,” Morawiecki added.
Injecting further intrigue into the proceedings are the similarities to Russia-related political investigations in America and Tusk’s demands last year to investigate PiS rivals over Russian interference in a political scandal.
Irrespective of the necessity or political wisdom of the Russia-commission law, democracy in Poland is healthy by any objective measure. Interestingly, Poland, like the United States, staged a heated presidential election in 2020; unlike the Americans, the Poles tallied all the votes on the election night, without meaningful controversy.
Nonetheless, Brussels and Washington demand a large dose of liberalism in the liberal democracy equation, regardless of how well a given democracy functions. Thus, recent friendly relations will not prove to be free of cost. That the deeply entrenched globalist Tusk would be the West’s ideal man in Warsaw is beyond any reasonable doubt.
Political meddling—from the West, not East—was discernible even before the fallout from the Russia-commission law. During a March visit, Britain’s Prince William met with Warsaw mayor and opposition deputy Rafał Trzaskowski (who lost to Duda in the tight 2020 election) and dined at a so-called queer space restaurant. Tusk himself announced that only supporters of abortion until at least 12 weeks would be able to stand as PO parliamentary candidates, a move that suggests more deference to foreign players than to the Polish electorate and caused at least one longtime parliamentarian to leave the party. In a scenario familiar to Hungarians, the U.S. State Department weighed in on the Russian-interference commission. A visit from Samantha Power and her army of USAID activists figures to be only a matter of time.
Just ahead of a contentious election, Poland will need to adjust to a familiar coldness from the Western powers. If anyone can manage it effectively, count on the Poles. Memory of abandonment by their Western allies at the beginning and end of World War II runs deep in the Polish psyche, and the word ‘Yalta’ still evokes vivid emotions across Polish society.
Poles will find this reminder valuable, as their country is sure to continue commanding significant attention and political prodding from the international community. Whatever the outcome of these latest flashpoints, Polish politics promises to remain interesting throughout 2023.
Is Poland’s Atlanticist Bill Coming Due?
Poland is having a moment. Its roles as the front line adversary of Russian bellicosity and the chief recipient of war refugees from Ukraine have coincided with previously unimaginable economic dynamism, and the world has noticed.
This spring, it seemed that all major English-language outlets took turns profiling the shining light on the Vistula. Among them, the Washington Post dubbed the country the “new center of gravity” in Europe, and The Telegraph billed it “Europe’s next superpower.”
The present geopolitical realities driving this attention have wrought odd political consequences for the Poles. Poland’s relations with its longtime friend Hungary have been strained like never before in the post-communist era. Ursula von der Leyen, often considered antagonistic towards Poles in the past, has issued numerous statements expressing “solidarity with Poland.” Warsaw, which had previously hosted a high-profile visit from Republican candidate Mitt Romney and witnessed President Donald Trump’s signature foreign-policy moment, recently welcomed President Joe Biden twice in less than a year.
Last month, Hungarian foreign-policy expert Attila Demkó described Poland’s geopolitical stance in this way:
This would have been an unthinkable assessment just two years ago.
This unorthodox state of affairs might now be regressing toward the mean. Perhaps Poland’s Atlanticist bill is coming due.
As the White House begins to deviate cautiously from its long-stated aim of total victory in Ukraine, the stream of unbridled goodwill between Washington and Warsaw seems likely to subside. Evidence surfaced last month in the form of an old-fashioned controversy encompassing politicians, elections, and Russian interference.
Poland’s Sejm passed a provision authorizing a commission to investigate Russian interference in Polish government affairs from 2007-22. Incriminating findings promised to result in a decade-long ban on holding public office. A veto effort in the senate failed, and President Andrzej Duda signed the bill into law.
Critics immediately perceived a threat to former prime minister and president of the European Council, and current opposition leader, Donald Tusk, ahead of the November parliamentary elections, and duly branded the law “Lex Tusk.” (The European People’s Party, of which Tusk was leader until 2021, is undergoing a European criminal investigation for corruption.) Tusk himself called the law “one of the most dramatic moments of our Polish democracy after 1989,” and called for a protest march in Warsaw on June 4. In a theatrical political display, he appeared in the Sejm on the day of the vote and told journalists, “I wanted to see the faces of those who once again smashed the constitution.”
In a renewal of the political landscape from before the Ukraine war, the European Parliament called an emergency session to adjudicate the matter. Bloomberg pressed Duda on the issue in an interview. The president in turn asserted he could clear up the matter with Biden. Duda later proposed an amendment including a significant decrease in powers of the commission.
Dialogue in Poland after the march on June 4th focused on the number of attendees. March organizers from Tusk’s Civic Platform (PO) party and Tusk himself claimed over half-a-million participants, while Warsaw police sources estimated between 100,000-150,000.
Overseas, The Atlantic proclaimed, “Poland Is Not Ready to Accept a New McCarthyism.” NBC News asserted the demonstrators “show support for democracy.” The Guardian headlined, “[H]undreds of thousands march against right-wing populist government.” Thus, English-speakers and Polish readers of foreign news encountered only a very specific telling of events.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, of the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), stated, “It makes me laugh a bit when old foxes, who have been in politics for many, many years, organize an anti-government march and present it as a spontaneous civil protest.” He cited local government officials in claiming PO headquarters directed mayors and other local officials to transport PO activists and government employees to the march. “Let’s call it what it is … a march of PO activists, voters, and supporters,” Morawiecki added.
Injecting further intrigue into the proceedings are the similarities to Russia-related political investigations in America and Tusk’s demands last year to investigate PiS rivals over Russian interference in a political scandal.
Irrespective of the necessity or political wisdom of the Russia-commission law, democracy in Poland is healthy by any objective measure. Interestingly, Poland, like the United States, staged a heated presidential election in 2020; unlike the Americans, the Poles tallied all the votes on the election night, without meaningful controversy.
Nonetheless, Brussels and Washington demand a large dose of liberalism in the liberal democracy equation, regardless of how well a given democracy functions. Thus, recent friendly relations will not prove to be free of cost. That the deeply entrenched globalist Tusk would be the West’s ideal man in Warsaw is beyond any reasonable doubt.
Political meddling—from the West, not East—was discernible even before the fallout from the Russia-commission law. During a March visit, Britain’s Prince William met with Warsaw mayor and opposition deputy Rafał Trzaskowski (who lost to Duda in the tight 2020 election) and dined at a so-called queer space restaurant. Tusk himself announced that only supporters of abortion until at least 12 weeks would be able to stand as PO parliamentary candidates, a move that suggests more deference to foreign players than to the Polish electorate and caused at least one longtime parliamentarian to leave the party. In a scenario familiar to Hungarians, the U.S. State Department weighed in on the Russian-interference commission. A visit from Samantha Power and her army of USAID activists figures to be only a matter of time.
Just ahead of a contentious election, Poland will need to adjust to a familiar coldness from the Western powers. If anyone can manage it effectively, count on the Poles. Memory of abandonment by their Western allies at the beginning and end of World War II runs deep in the Polish psyche, and the word ‘Yalta’ still evokes vivid emotions across Polish society.
Poles will find this reminder valuable, as their country is sure to continue commanding significant attention and political prodding from the international community. Whatever the outcome of these latest flashpoints, Polish politics promises to remain interesting throughout 2023.
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