Welcome
to European Union B
Poland’s
ruling Law and Justice has no reason to give in to Brussels. The EU’s
too easy to portray as arrogant and out of touch with ordinary Poles.
By NORBERT
MALISZEWSKI 6/9/16, 5:30 AM CET
When Poland’s Law
and Justice (PiS) came to power in 2015, the party and its leader,
Jarosław Kaczyński, claimed to represent Poles who feel like they
missed out on the country’s quarter century of political and
economic revolution. PiS cast its rivals as arrogant crony
politicians who cashed in on Poland’s transition and represented
the richer western half of the country, known as “Poland A,” and
treated the eastern, poorer half — “Poland B” — with
disdain.
Ten years later,
with the party now back in power with a strong majority in
parliament, the same messaging is at work in PiS’s current standoff
with the European Commission. In Kaczyński’s version, the crisis
prompted by concerns about rule of law and democracy in Poland is
really about something else: arrogant Brussels bureaucrats and their
supporters in Warsaw who don’t understand the needs and aspirations
of average Poles.
PiS is presenting
the crisis as one more example of Brussels overreach. Poland is now
firmly with Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which all
resent Brussels over a wide range of issues, especially the proposal
to force all members to accept a set number of migrants. This
Euroskeptic bloc is forming what could be called a “European Union
B.”
Poles are among the
strongest supporters of the EU, but there is a minority in favor of
loosening ties with the EU. Some even voice support for a so-called
“Polexit.” The constitutional standoff with Brussels over
Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal could move more Poles in that
direction.
“Obsessed with the
idea of instant and total integration, we failed to notice that
ordinary people, the citizens of Europe, do not share our
Euro-enthusiasm,” Donald Tusk, president of the European Council
and a former Polish prime minister, said at a recent meeting of the
European People’s Party.
PiS is betting that
it can leverage that hostility towards the Brussels elites to help
win the present battle. The key to victory for them is to drag it out
until December. That’s when current tribunal chief justice,
Andrzej Rzepliński, is due to step down, and his replacement could
be more amenable to PiS.
Last week, the
Commission issued an opinion on Poland’s adherence to European law.
Though it wasn’t made public, the Commission’s stance is hardly a
secret: It urges Poland’s ruling party to seat three justices
appointed by the previous parliament to the Constitutional Tribunal.
PiS has thus far refused to recognize those judges.
To get its message
across, Kaczyński’s party is belittling the unprecedented nature
of Brussels’ intervention, which could even escalate to suspending
Poland’s EU voting rights.
The ruling party
last year changed how the tribunal operates. The tribunal itself
later ruled the law was unconstitutional. The government has ignored
the verdict, which the EU wants it to accept.
The Commission has
never before launched a rule of law probe against a member state. To
get its message across, Kaczyński’s party is belittling the
unprecedented nature of Brussels’ intervention, which could lead
eventually to the suspension of Poland’s EU voting rights. “An
opinion is an opinion, and it doesn’t have any influence on
decisions being taken in Poland,” said Prime Minister Beata Szydło.
PiS contrasts the
supposedly pettifogging approach of Brussels bureaucrats with all the
hard work its politicians are doing on behalf of the Polish people.
“Most of my time
today has been spent on working on Apartment+,” Szydło told me in
an email, referring to a new low-cost housing program announced late
last week. “That’s the difference between the Polish government
and the Brussels bureaucracy. We are taking care of the problems of
the people; we speak a language they understand, while the Brussels
administration is involved with itself. Will the procedure launched
by the EC in any way improve the life of the average Kowalski? Does
the technocratic opinion of well-paid Brussels bureaucrats help solve
the housing problems of Poles?”
PiS will only agree
to end the crisis on its own terms.
The mix of populist
economics and a sense of grievance at the arrogance of the previous
government is why an ongoing purge of state media, government
ministries, and state-controlled companies has been greeted with
enthusiasm among the party’s core electorate.
Kaczyński is using
that same playbook in his standoff with Brussels. Unfeeling Eurocrats
play the role of villains. The Commission’s current approach only
helps Kaczyński by feeding that narrative. He has called into
question the Commission’s authority to even begin such a process,
threatening to appeal the case before the EU’s Court of Justice.
His response is even
more aggressive than the approach Viktor Orbán took when Hungary
came under EU fire for not adhering to democratic principles. The
Hungarian prime minister was conciliatory toward Brussels, but flexed
his muscles back home. Kaczyński doesn’t make any distinction
between foreign and domestic audiences
PiS will only agree
to end the crisis on its own terms. Kaczyński wants a bill on the
Constitutional Tribunal that seeks a “compromise” to the crisis
to be taken up in parliament, where PiS has a clear majority. The
bill includes measures that the tribunal has already ruled
unconstitutional, and would finesse the issue of the three justices
elected by the previous parliament, whom President Andrzej Duda
refuses to swear in
Poland’s ruling
party won’t back down, but can Brussels? Acquiescing to PiS would
mean ending a damaging conflict with the bloc’s sixth-largest
member, but also turning a blind eye to democratic abuses. Pushing
forward with the probe may support the noble goal of securing the
rule of law in Poland, but it may also cement a “European Union B.”
Norbert Maliszewski
is a political scientist at the University of Warsaw.
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