WARSAW — David Cameron’s visit to Warsaw on Friday is about more than the British prime minister hunting for support ahead of a Brexit referendum. It’s also a way for Poland to show it still matters in the EU.
“The fact that Cameron is coming to Poland is proof that Poland is an important member of the EU,” said Prime Minister Beata Szydło.
Szydło and her Law and Justice party government are working hard to make the case that Poland hasn’t faded into insignificance in the EU because of her government’s controversial early steps.
Although the party is often painted as Euroskeptic, Law and Justice has no desire to quit the EU, unlike populist movements in the U.K. and France.
What it wants is reduced German influence — party founder and leader Jarosław Kaczyński has long been suspicious of German power in Europe, a view colored by his parents’ wartime experiences — and an EU based on sovereign nation states that won’t interfere in Poland’s internal politics while still providing the financial and security protection Poland needs.
Witold Waszczykowski, the foreign minister, laid out that approach in a recent speech to parliament. He stressed that “we are members of the European Union and our security and well-being depends directly on its condition.”
Waszczykowski then proceeded to paint a stark picture of an EU riven by crises, from the survival of the eurozone to the bloc’s inability to police its borders and stem a rush of migrants, to the need to deter Russian aggression.
A new view of the EU
The answer isn’t any sort of “ever closer union” in the EU, he said. Instead, Poland is much closer to the views of the U.K. on the need to see the bloc as a “union of free nations and equal countries.”
Poland’s new chief diplomat gave the nod to the U.K. as Poland’s most important EU partner. But relations with Germany, while friendly, will no longer be marked by “superficial accommodation.”
“It’s a good opportunity for a bit of stock-taking,” Waszczykowski said.
Poland finds itself on the sidelines of many crucial EU issues, from migration to pollution.
That’s a shift from the policies of the previous, Civic Platform government headed by Donald Tusk, now president of the European Council. The priority then was to become an indispensable partner for Germany and to make Warsaw a powerful player in the EU. Tusk even promised in 2008 that Poland would be in the euro by 2012, a pledge that fell by the wayside in the wake of the global economic crisis.
Radek Sikorski, a former foreign minister, gave a speech in Berlin in 2011 urging Germany to take up its role as a European leader. “I will probably be the first Polish foreign minister in history to say so, but here it is: I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity,” he said.
The new government is much lonelier.
Poland finds itself on the sidelines of many crucial EU issues, from migration to pollution. The new government’s domestic policies have set off a crisis over changes to the top constitutional court, politicized the civil service and brought public media under government control, leading to street protests and rising concern from EU bodies.
Szydło was in the European Parliament last month defending her government’s record.
The fuss over Poland has died down in recent days, as EU authorities reassess whether a January decision to launch an unprecedented probe into its new laws was warranted. New steps, like this week’s decision to bring the prosecutor’s office under the control of powerful Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, didn’t ruffle any feathers in Brussels. Neither did President Andrezj Duda signing a new law Thursday that increases the power of police agencies to snoop on citizens.
“The worst is behind us,” Szydło said in an interview with the wSieci magazine. “No matter how much the opposition tries to interfere, whether inside the country or outside, they will not break us. We will survive and we will carry out the changes that are vital for Poland.”
Fighting to stay relevant
Although outrage over the new government is dying down, Poland is still under scrutiny and there is a strong sense that its position in the EU is weaker than it was a year or two ago. Polish diplomats have noticed the change in atmosphere around their country.
“Poland is not isolated” — Konrad Szymański, Poland’s Europe minister.
“Poland has surprised everybody here,” said a Polish diplomat in Brussels. “Polish officials had long been campaigning for common interests, we are now in a confrontational position. We confront our policies, we confront our statements.”
Although he admitted that Warsaw is “louder” than under the previous government, Konrad Szymański, the Europe minister, told POLITICO that “Poland is not isolated.”
He charged that there’s a double standard in Brussels and Western Europe, which accepts France’s move to increase law enforcement powers at the cost of civil liberties in the wake of last year’s terrorist attacks, but denounces decisions taken by governments in Hungary and Poland.
But on many of the core issues for the EU, Poland finds itself in direct opposition to Western European nations.
That includes the EU’s ambitious policy on climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as opposing the expansion of the Nord Stream pipeline running under the Baltic from Russia to Germany, a project backed by German companies and not opposed by Berlin.
“The symmetry of interests with Germany isn’t as close as Civic Platform had thought,” said Szymański.
Poland plans to make London its key EU ally, and to cement links with other Central European countries, especially the Visegrád Group.
The new government is also unenthusiastic about the EU’s plan to relocate asylum-seekers throughout the bloc. Warsaw agreed to resettle about 7,000 but is vociferously opposed to large-scale migration to the EU. Poland, along with Hungary, Slovakia and others, is especially worried that migrants will dilute Europe’s traditional culture and religion.
“The countries of Central Europe are those that didn’t experience post-war migration, which is why they have reacted so strongly to the West European experience. This part of Europe says ‘We like the West, but we don’t like that part,’” said Szymański. “This region rejects the multicultural paradigm.”
That leaves Warsaw scrambling to find new friends.
Waszczykowski laid out the strategy in his speech to parliament. Poland plans to make London its key EU ally, and to cement links with other Central European countries, especially the Visegrád Group that also includes Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
There is even a call to build a bloc of countries from the Baltic to the Adriatic that harks back to a period of Poland’s medieval glory when its ruling dynasty controlled most of Central Europe.
The changes in Warsaw’s foreign policy mean Cameron will have a solid negotiating position when he meets with Szydło and then with Kaczyński. Poland has raised misgivings over giving the U.K. a “brake” on benefits for EU migrants working in the country, a crucial condition for Cameron ahead of a referendum on staying in the EU.
That’s a recognition of the million or so Poles who live in the U.K., a group the Polish government cannot ignore. But Poland also needs allies in the EU, which will make it difficult for Szydło to lead the opposition to the concessions Cameron wants.
“This is an important objective for the Poles, to have a powerful non-eurozone ally, to dilute German influence and to strengthen the national sovereignty of the EU’s member states,” said Mujtaba Rachman of Eurasia Group, an analysis firm. “This will make it more difficult for Waszczykowski to continue driving a hard bargain.”
Maïa de La Baume contributed to this article.