The opposition conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party in Poland is furious over European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen’s interference in the Polish presidential elections. Von der Leyen has unfairly shown leniency toward Poland on several key issues, such as migration and the European Green Deal, in the hope that liberal candidate Rafał Trzaskowski will win the elections and not conservative Karol Nawrocki.
According to a recent article by French daily Le Monde, Von der Leyen, a close ally of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, did not object when he, while standing beside her during a press conference in Gdansk, stated that his country would not implement the European Pact on Migration and Asylum, despite the fact that the pact is binding for all EU member states.
As Le Monde writes, “the Commission president was aware of how sensitive the immigration issue is in Poland and chose not to react, hoping that once the spring election was over, Tusk would be more inclined to abide by the law.”
Tusk has also repeatedly criticised the EU’s Green Deal, which he has described as a policy that is detrimental to European competitiveness and households’ purchasing power. However, Von der Leyen has not contradicted him, and even decided to postpone an announcement of the 2040 CO2 emissions reduction target, which had initially been scheduled for the first quarter of the year.
Furthermore, the Commission has also delayed decisions until after the elections on regulating trade between Ukraine and the EU, as well as on the ratification of the EU-Mercosur trade agreement—both issues have angered Polish farmers who see the deals as a threat to their livelihood.
“We tolerate certain positions from Donald Tusk that we wouldn’t for others,” a European diplomat admitted to Le Monde.
Jadwiga Wiśniewska, an MEP for the conservative PiS party, reacted to the article by saying that the pre-election deal between Brussels and Warsaw has been exposed. She called for voters to back conservative candidate Karol Nawrocki so that power doesn’t land in the hands of one political group.
