Last days of Poland’s EU springtime?

Date: 08/06/06

When Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz formed a coalition government with two nationalist parties to gain a majority in Poland's parliament, the reaction across the EU was one of widespread horror.

It seemed that, by teaming up with the left-wing populist Samoobrona RP (Polish Self-Defence) party and the ultra-Catholic League of Polish Families (LPF), the already strongly nationalist government led by the Law and Justice (PiS) party was setting the stage for constant clashes with the European Commission and Poland's EU partners. The electoral rhetoric of both the coalition allies had been anti-EU, with Samoobrona calling for Poland to renegotiate the terms it got for entering the Union in 2004. The respected foreign minister Stefan Meller quit the government in protest at the coalition.

But since Samoobrona's Andrzej Lepper joined the government as deputy prime minister and farm minister, and LPF's Roman Giertych as education minister, relations between Warsaw and Brussels have turned surprisingly amicable.

In late May Poland was one of 23 states to sign up to a code of conduct on opening up defence procurement contracts to tenders from other EU countries. Spain refused to sign up to the new code but Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland's defence minister, overcame opposition from within his own ministry and Polish defence companies. Sikorski also pledged Polish forces to join the EU's German-led peacekeeping mission to DR Congo for the elections in July.

In turn, the government has benefited from a number of concessions from the Commission in key areas where Poland receives significant amounts of funding from the EU.

Lepper, a former pig farmer who once led angry farmers' protests, made his first appearance at an EU Agriculture Council in May. He joked after meeting Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel that there had been "no earthquake", commenting that the delegation had not been received as "populists" or "demagogues". He came away from the meeting with two significant prizes for Polish farmers. Fischer Boel agreed to reduce a fine for overshooting milk production quotas and to give farmers an extra month to register for farm payments. The Commission has granted similar concessions to other new member states.

Lepper's case may have been helped by the poor performance of his predecessor Krzysztof Jurgiel, who turned up in Brussels, refused to negotiate in the ongoing sugar reform and was left complaining after Poland missed out on some extra sweeteners when the final deal emerged.

The Commission has also cut Warsaw some slack on structural funds, showing flexibility towards administrative delays in Poland.

Lepper now travels to Brussels in smart suits and behaves impeccably, but he is not above falling back into his old rhetorical excesses. When Russia recently banned imports of Polish farm goods on food safety grounds, he threatened to block all products going from the EU into Russia unless the Commission got involved in persuading Moscow to end its embargo.

Recent noises from Warsaw suggest that the government could accept a new round of EU institutional reforms provided the European constitution was revised, possibly to scrap the preamble to the text which did not refer to the Union's Christian heritage.

So it may be that EU-Polish relations have entered a new, more constructive phase.

Professor Lena Kolarska-Bobinska, director of the Polish Institute of Public Affairs, puts the evolution in the government's stance down to the usual transition from opposition to being in government, as well as a concern over issues with real financial impact for Polish voters. Referring to the funds for farm payments and regional development, she says: "They know this is a question of money. It's very important for the local communities."

But the apparent springtime in relations between Brussels and the EU will be tested in the near future. Commission sources say that there will be clashes over very politically sensitive state aid cases in the coming months.

Positive relations may be easy to achieve when Poland's farmers and regions are enjoying the first financial fruits of EU membership. But if Brussels can be blamed for obliging the government to let struggling companies go under, the current thaw may prove short-lived.

Author takes a look at relations between the Polish Government and the European Union since Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz formed a coalition government on 5 May 2006 with two nationalist parties to gain a majority in Poland's parliament. Although this had been predicted to have a negative impact the author suggests that relations between Warsaw and Brussels had entered a new, more constructive phase.

• Primary Source