An EP with a Polish flavour:
Saturday 29 August 2009By EU Reporter Correspondents
Poland’s reputation in Europe for being a prickly and awkward customer could be set for a makeover come June’s elections to the European parliament.
Although opinion polls predict Poles to be enthused with nothing more than lethargy when it comes to voting on June 7 they also suggest that Poland’s more anti-EU, or just plain Euro-sceptic parties, could suffer at the hands of the country’s more pro-European parties.
A March opinion poll by the CBOS institute found that 51 per cent of voters could plump for Civic Platform, the governing party of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Law and Justice, the main opposition party, which is led by the euro-sceptic former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, is expected to scoop nothing more than 22 per cent of the vote.
Parties with a serious axe to grind with the EU could fare even worse. The League of Polish Families (LPR), nationalistic and conservative to its core, and the populist rural-based party Self-Defence may well struggle to get nothing more than a handful of MEPs between them.
For them this is a far cry from the last time around.
Fresh from election victories that came a month after Poland had joined the EU the LPR became the second biggest Polish party in the European parliament with 10 seats, while Self-Defence managed to send six MEPs to Brussels, all of them decked in garish red and white striped ties.
They lost little time in developing a rowdy reputation, while LPR MEPs caused consternation in the elegant corridors of Brussels by, for example, mounting an exhibition comparing abortion to the Holocaust.
So what has changed? To begin with, says Jacek Kucharczyk, from Warsaw’s Institute of Public Affairs, Poland has become a very different country to what it was in 2004.
“2004 was a long time ago and few people realised then that there was so much anxiety about the results of membership,” he explains. “People thought belonging to the EU might be quite devastating to the Polish economy.”
This climate, Kucharczyk adds, created an environment in which right wing and anti-EU parties both flourished and profited.
But the dangers that pessimists predicted would engulf Poland following membership of the club have failed to materialise. In fact, the opposite happened as the country basked in the benefits of belonging to the EU.
Until the recession started to bite, Poland’s economy had enjoyed a five year roll, with GDP growing and investment flooding into the country. Unemployment, which in 2004 came in at an EU high of 20 per cent was brought under control and recently fell below 10 per cent.
EU membership might also cushion the hammer blows dished out to Poland by the recession as Brussels has earmarked millions of euros in funding, which should help keep the Polish economy ticking over.
In addition to this you have the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Poles who took advantage of the right to work in Britain and Ireland that came courtesy of EU membership.
All this has put parties who view the EU with scepticism on the back foot. How can they say that the EU, and its various projects that Poland has yet to embrace, such as the euro and the Lisbon Treaty, poses some threat to the country?
Another factor at play that could contribute to the demise of the euro-sceptics is that they lack widespread popular appeal.
During its time in government Law and Justice garnered a reputation as a trouble maker in Europe as its leader and Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski went around the continent ruffling feathers with gay abandon.
This played well with his conservative and flag-waving electorate, but over time he and his party became increasingly out of step with the rest of the country and consequently they lost the national election in 2005.
Recently Law and Justice has tried to address this problem by attempting to portray itself as a more cuddly and inclusive party, but only with limited success at best.
“There is not much evidence to suggest that the campaign has worked, and Law and Justice has really changed, so it won’t have any impact on the European elections,” says Kucharczyk. “It looks as if they plan to rely on their old electorate and they don’t want to confuse them.”
Relying on a core of disciplined voters could also be folly for Law and Justice. It appears that when it comes to voting in the European elections, europhiles are far more eager to cast their ballots than euro-sceptics. In fact, surveys suggest that pro-Europeans are twice as likely to vote come June as their ideological opposites.
Not good news for the leading euro-sceptic party therefore, although they can take consolation from the fact that the Polish left, and the more extreme parties, such as Self-Defence and the LPR, are very much on the margins of conventional politics, which means that Law and Justice should be able to hoover up some extra votes. As a result, Law and Justice should still be the second biggest Polish party in Parliament.
When it comes to the crunch over who wins how many seats, a study by three political scientists (Simon Hix, Michael Marsh and Nick Vivyan) found that Civic Platform could see its number of seats leap from 15 to 25.
This in turn could have an influence on the EPP-ED group in the European parliament, which brings together a plethora of centre and centre-right parties. With Poland not only having a louder voice but also a more unified voice, as all its members will be from one party, it should have a greater influence in the group.
“The EPP will be a lot less German and a lot more Polish,” says Simon Hix from the London School of Economics. “For the first time there will be a large delegation from a new member country in one of the main groups. This may change the colour of politics in the EPP.”
A powerful group of Polish MEPs from Civic Platform could also boost the chances of Jerzy Buzek becoming the EPP’s head. A well-respected former Prime Minister, Buzek, if given the job, could give the Poles even more clout.
Polish influence could also grow in the conservative grouping, UEN. Despite its problems, Law and Justice could well increase its number of MEPs thus giving it a greater voice, although certain aspects of the party’s ideology, such as a centrist stance on fiscal issues, which are at odds with true conservative economics, could diminish this.
At the same time, both Law and Justice and Civic Platform could benefit from the demise of the extreme fringe of Polish politics, which, at times, made Poland look rather peculiar in the eyes of Europe.
So when MEPs convene for the first time after the elections, the Poles, more united and more respected could be a force to be reckoned with.
FROM THE SPRING 2009 PRINT EDITION