Donald Tusk, the European Council president, said Monday he “wasn’t enthusiastic” about last week’s decision by the European Commission to open a probe into whether Poland is falling short of the EU’s democratic norms.
Speaking after a meeting with Andrzej Duda, Poland’s president, Tusk went on to say that despite his disagreement, the discussion launched by the Commission would be “an opportunity to tone down the emotional debate” over the situation in Poland.
That was also the main message coming from Duda, part of a broader effort by Warsaw to combat the wave of negative publicity that has overtaken the country in reaction to steps taken by the new government that critics consider are fraying Poland’s democratic credentials.
“I appeal for a calmer discussion … based on the real facts and not media creations,” said Duda.
While the two Poles agreed that the tone of the debate about what’s happening in their homeland has become too harsh, they differed sharply on the reasons for the criticism.
Duda insisted that there was nothing unusual going on in Poland, pointing out that the large street protests against the government in recent weeks are evidence that democracy is doing well.
“A change of government often carries consequences, and not everyone agrees with those consequences,” he said.
Varying views
That wasn’t the view of Tusk, who served as Polish prime minister from 2007-2014 before taking over the Council in 2014.
He stoutly defended his government’s economic record, when Poland generally had the highest growth rates in Europe, contrasting it with last week’s first-ever downgrade of Poland by a rating agency.
While Tusk said there has to be an effort “to calm down the hotheads” speaking out about Poland, he also made clear that Warsaw’s problem wasn’t uninformed and excessive criticism from abroad — as the government maintains. Rather, he said, the solution to the image problem lies with the new government restraining itself.
“The key is what is happening, not what is being said,” Tusk said.
There’s not much indication that the Law and Justice party government intends to veer from its course. The new government has pushed through regulations that critics say undermine the country’s top constitutional court, allow for tighter government control of the public media, politicize the civil service and give greater powers to prosecutors.
“There is no sense in being concerned” about pressure from the EU, Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of Law and Justice and by most accounts Poland’s most powerful politician, told the Rzeczpospolita newspaper.
But Warsaw does see a need for a less aggressive approach to the outside world.
“Poland is not a problem, Poland is part of the solution to Europe’s problems,” Witold Waszczykowski, the foreign minister, said in Brussels Monday. He added that Tuesday’s debate in the European Parliament with Prime Minister Beata Szydło should “end the issue” of Poland being a special object of EU concern.
While Duda and Tusk may have differed in their assessment of what Poland should do to calm emotions, the two were broadly in agreement on specific policy areas.
Both want the U.K. to stay in the EU, both said the EU needs to a better job of securing its borders and both were wary of the Nord Stream 2 project, a plan to double the capacity of the natural gas pipeline running under the Baltic from Russia to Germany. Poland and other central European countries worry it could strengthen Russia’s market power over the region, a concern broadly shared by Brussels.
Maïa de la Baume contributed to this article.