Aggressive Poles lose friends and influence

Date: 23/03/06

The spring economic summit (23-24 March) will see a major test of the effectiveness of the Polish government's strident stance towards the EU.

Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz will try to garner support for a European energy security treaty in order to deal with the threat to supplies from Russia. The initiative is being dubbed "Gas NATO", partly because Poland has invited its partners in the military alliance to join, as well as the other 24 EU members.

However, the initiative, which is designed to feed into the EU's emerging energy strategy, has found little backing.

EU officials say that Poland has not put in the necessary diplomatic groundwork in the run-up to the summit to ensure that its proposal receives a positive response. Few if any countries other than the Baltic states and Poland's partners from the Visegr�group - Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary - are likely to be enthusiastic.

The fate of the energy plan illustrates a wider problem about Poland's influence in the EU. The minority government of Marcinkiewicz's Justice and Law party (PiS) has taken a quasi-nationalistic tone in its dealings with the EU.

It has already faced criticism from the Commission and Jean-Claude Trichet, the European Central Bank president, for interfering in a merger involving the Polish operations of foreign banks.

The PiS's line on EU issues has hardened since the party's opposition to the more liberal economic policies of the Civic Platform (PO) made it the largest party in parliament in the elections last autumn. Public rows with the PO made a coalition between the parties with the largest votes out of the question and the PiS decided to create a minority government with the support of the Agrarian Peasants' Party, the deeply socially conservative League of Polish Families and the even more nationalist Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland (Samoobrona).

But the government's tough stance seems to be yielding few positive results. Poland did well from the 2007-13 budget deal struck by EU leaders last December. But it is difficult to argue that this was down to the negotiating tactics of the Polish prime minister. The overall package was improved compared to the original plan of the UK presidency to trim _15 billion off funds for regional development in the new member states by offering a series of "virtual money" sweeteners in the form of easing spending rules for structural funds. The extra _100 million won by Poland stemmed indirectly from the efforts of newly installed German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Poland's result on the extension of lower value added tax rates, reached after Warsaw blocked the package for several days, was not substantially better than what had been on the table earlier, but it was portrayed as the government standing up to Brussels, which played well domestically.

There are a number of other cases where it can be argued that Poland's seemingly aggressive stance has proved counterproductive. The Poles tried to block agreement on the 2006 budget last year but this harmed their chances of affecting the final outcome. On reforms of the EU sugar regime, the government missed the chance to get a better outcome for Polish beet growers by joining negotiations too late.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski has opened up new division lines, stating in Berlin recently that it was "too early" to push for elements of the EU's constitutional treaty such as a European foreign minister. His comments, which were at odds with efforts to improve relations with the German government, clash with Germany's plans for its presidency of the EU in 2007.

Despite any evidence that Warsaw's tough stance is delivering benefits (apart from an improvement in the government's opinion poll ratings), there are few signs of a change in approach. Although it came close to having to hold new elections in February, the government hung on and looks like maintaining power for another year or so.

But the energy security treaty plan illustrates the irony at the heart of Warsaw's position. While on the one hand it opposes further integration contained in the constitution, it is calling for a greater role for the EU in an area of vital national interest where it feels particularly vulnerable to the vicissitudes of its Russian neighbour.

Yet until Warsaw learns that the advantage of EU membership is that pooling sovereignty increases rather than reduces the ability to defend national priorities, the country will continue to have a lesser role in EU affairs than its demographic and strategic status warrant.

Major analysis feature in which the author examines the new Polish Government's stance towards the European Union. He argues that the quasi-nationalistic tone which the minority government of Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz's Justice and Law party (PiS) took in its recent dealings with the EU proved more often counteractive than successful.

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