Warsaw sours on EU after Donald Tusk debacle

WARSAW — Poland’s failed attempt to block a second term for European Council President Donald Tusk has sent the country’s right-wing government in a sharply Euroskeptic direction.

In an unprecedented statement for a senior Polish official, Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski, in an interview with the Super Express tabloid published Saturday, called for “drastically lowering the level of trust toward the EU” by blocking EU initiatives in an effort to change Polish public opinion about the Union.

Until now, the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has been careful to argue that it is simply fighting for Polish interests in Brussels, while steering clear of the anti-EU rhetoric favored by populists like France’s Marine Le Pen and the U.K.’s Brexiteers.

The reason is that Poles have consistently been one of the most pro-EU countries — the most recent survey by Eurobarometer put Poland behind only Ireland in its positive assessment of the EU.

Waszczykowski made clear the government wants to change that. “For years Polish public opinion has had a naive belief that the European Union is a club of altruists in which there is an effort to come to common conclusions. [The Tusk vote] showed us clearly that it’s different, that you have to have sharp teeth.”

The foreign minister’s comments are part of a broader shift in government rhetoric in the wake of the fight over Tusk, where Poland was the only member to oppose another two-and-a-half year term for the former prime minister.

The reaction by the government and its backers was furious, and they painted the EU as an alien entity hostile to Polish interests.

“We, the heads of government, should be looking after the interests of our citizens,” Beata Szydło, the Polish prime minister, said in Brussels after Tusk‘s reelection. “Meanwhile, the European Council most often looks after the particular interests of certain groups.”

Kaczyński has been trying without success to persuade EU leaders to renegotiate the EU treaties to create a looser Union.

The language in Warsaw was even clearer.

The EU “is dominated by one country,” Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of PiS and Poland’s de facto ruler, said at a news conference. “There is no point in concealing that the country is Germany.”

He added a warning that if the EU “doesn’t turn from the path down which it is marching it will lead to a situation in which it will become a part of history.”

Polish state television, which hews to a pro-government line, announced Tusk’s victory with a caption reading, “The election of Donald Tusk is Germany’s success.”

Beata Mazurek, a PiS spokeswoman, took a page out of the Euroskeptic British press’ playbook, poking fun at EU directives that supposedly “treat a carrot like a fruit or a snail like a fish.”

Ambivalent over Europe

Many conservative Poles have long been torn over the EU. They appreciate the political security and economic prosperity that flows from membership, but bridle at social changes such as tolerance of homosexuality and abortion that also come from European integration, worrying they will undermine Poland’s Catholic and nationalist traditions.

EU Council President Donald Tusk at the end of the first day of the EU Council in Brussels | Stephanie Lecocq/EPA

There is also disquiet at handing sovereignty over to Brussels. Kaczyński has been trying without success to persuade EU leaders to renegotiate the EU treaties to create a looser Union that will be more of a free-trade zone and less of a nascent federation.

Tusk’s election over howls of protest from Warsaw strengthens those fears.

Waszczykowski warned in an interview with the Onet news portal that the vote on Tusk means the “Union is becoming an organization in which the pressure of large countries decides.”

He added that the EU “takes similar decisions based on dictates in other areas — energy or climate.”

Warsaw has had increasing difficulty pushing its priorities though Brussels, souring the government on the EU.

Poland was upset that its views weren’t reflected in the recent approach to reforming the EU’s Emissions Trading System — Warsaw is worried that increasing the cost of carbon permits will cripple its heavy industry and its coal-reliant power sector.

“Some countries want to run forward, cutting themselves off from countries of our region” — Witold Waszczykowski, Polish foreign minister

The government has also refused to take any asylum seekers from the pool of refugees being resettled across the EU and it is embroiled in a fight with the EU over charges that the government is violating the bloc’s democratic principles by making changes to Poland’s top constitutional court.

On issue after issue, the distance between Warsaw and the rest of the EU is growing. Poland wasn’t invited to a summit of the EU’s biggest four countries — Germany, France, Italy and Spain — earlier this week.

“It’s not that we’re alienating ourselves from the Union. It’s that some countries want to run forward, cutting themselves off from countries of our region,” said Waszczykowski.

Money talks

The closest tie now binding Poland to the remaining 27 members is cash. Warsaw expects to collect about €106 billion over the course of the 2014-2020 budget cycle.

When asked by a reporter if Poland planned to use the same blocking maneuver on the budget that it tried over Tusk, Szydło replied that it’s best “not to tie issues related to finances and the budget with other questions.”

But those links are being made. François Hollande, the French president, remarked to Szydło during the summit that France paid for the structural funds going to Poland.

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło arrives for the EU Council in Brussels | Olivier Hoslet/EPA

Italy and Austria grumble that countries like Poland which are not pulling their weight over asylum seekers should pay a financial price.

In an interview with Spiegel, Justice Commissioner Vera Jourová noted that during the post-2020 budget negotiations, “any further massive funding” is going to have to be tied to a recipient country’s values as well as its economic needs.

That’s unlikely to make the Polish government and the one-third of the electorate that forms its core backing any happier about the EU.

This article has been updated with new quotes from Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski.