Analyze. From the start of the war in Ukraine, the notion has dominated that this major geopolitical shock helped strengthen the European Union (EU), NATO and the transatlantic partnership. These three pillars of the western world, which have multiplied signs of weakness in recent years, have been reinforced by their determined and unified responses to the Russian threat. But this revival of form, through lack of vigilance, could well come at the expense of the common set of values intended to unite the West.
Six years after the European Commission launched an unprecedented “rule of law” procedure against Poland’s conservative PiS (Law and Justice) national government, it is preparing to release €36 billion from the overdue post-Covid stimulus plan in Warsaw. Those funds had been withheld for nearly a year because the PiS, chaired by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, refused to comply with requests from the Court of Justice of the European Union aimed at defending rule of law standards.
“Harmful Compromise”
However, the Polish democrats are unanimous: despite the vote on a law that only appears to go in the direction of the Commission’s demands, none of the three conditions originally set by Brussels have been met. The agreement reached between the Polish government and the European executive after arduous negotiations has been described as a “harmful compromise” by defenders of liberal democracy. Accordingly, none of the measures adopted will improve the state of the rule of law in the country, and agreeing to these facade solutions could set a dangerous precedent.
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However, for the first time the European Commission had an effective lever to back Warsaw up against the wall and tackle the core of the problems undermining Polish democracy. This missed opportunity leaves a bitter aftertaste. The commission gave in to the geopolitical pressures of the moment: with the war in Ukraine, Poland turned from a pariah of Europe into an indispensable partner, playing a crucial role in particular in the issue of supplying arms to Kyiv and as a host country to almost 2.5 million refugees.
Even though the war has restored the country’s image and strengthened its political position, nothing has changed in the power of the PiS, kleptocratic and undemocratic.
The country, educated by its turbulent history, can also boast a visionary role: it turns out that the populist and reactionary party it leads has shown greater realism towards Russia than most political forces that support it old Europe dominated. The visits of Polish Prime Ministers Mateusz Morawiecki and Jaroslaw Kaczynski to Kyiv on March 16, as well as then-President Andrzej Duda’s historic speech to the Ukrainian Parliament on May 22 had a strong symbolic impact and reaffirmed the country in its role as regional leader.
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