Continuity with New Accents: Poland's Foreign Policy after the Parliamentary Elections

Central Europe Digest

Posted: 31 October 2007

by Olaf Osica

On October 21st, Poland held general elections. With an unprecedented turnout of 53 percent, Civic Platform (PO) ousted Jarosław Kaczyński’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party from power. PO won 209 out of 460 seats in the lower house; PiS, 167; the alliance of the socialists and democrats (LiD), 53; and the centrist Polish Peasants Party (PSL), 31. The new government coalition will be composed of PO and PSL under PO leadership, with Donald Tusk as the new Prime Minister. Despite its defeat, PiS remains an influential force in Polish politics. The President, Lech Kaczyński, has constitutional prerogatives to veto parliamentary bills and a say in shaping foreign and defense policy.

Most foreign commentators greeted PiS’ defeat with open approval. One reason for the Kaczyński government’s unpopularity abroad is the abrasive style that has characterized its approach to foreign policy – a foreign policy that is widely associated with the hard-nosed pursuit of Polish national interests and a profound distrust of the European Union (EU), Germany and Russia. While PiS’ record in foreign policy suggests that this is partly a caricature – the government’s rhetoric was always more hawkish than its actual behavior – the belief that the Kaczyński brothers undermined Poland’s international standing remains strong. Few observers have managed to peer beyond the rhetoric to form a deeper understanding of how the roots and the nature of Polish foreign policy changed under PiS. Contrary to popular misconception, the twins’ agenda was not merely the by-product of a parochial worldview, laden with historical trauma. From the outside, Poland’s recent behavior has appeared to be an incoherent and overemotional reaction to the perceived decline of the West and reemergence of a powerful Russia. Apparently, Poland accomplished its “return to Europe” agenda only to discover that both NATO and the EU were no longer the guarantors of Polish sovereignty.

The Iraq War, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and the battle for the EU Constitutional Treaty politicized Poland’s approach to transatlantic affairs and European integration. Poland was forced to make a hard choice – not between “old and new Europe,” but between two visions of itself: One as a passive bystander who profits from being everyone’s friend, and another as a self-confident player with an ambition to shape its partners’ agenda. Of these two, it was the ‘player’ approach that eventually prevailed, paving the way for a paradigm shift in Poland’s foreign policy.

The new government will not reverse this trend. PO leaders have always criticized the style, but rarely the substance, of Kaczyński foreign policy. Tusk’s party endorsed PiS’ tough stance toward Russia in the recent negotiations on an EU-Russia partnership agreement. Both parties share the view that Germany must relinquish the “Schroeder legacy” of close German-Russian relations if it wants to see relations with Poland improved. And like PiS, PO has expressed concern about the new tendency in German history to portray Germans as the victims, rather than just the perpetrators, of World War Two.

It seems likely therefore that the new government will try to capitalize on the Kaczyński legacy and the warm reception that Tusk’s victory has received among Poland’s EU partners to continue the Kaczyński agenda more effectively, with a different style and new accents. The current international setting is likely to facilitate such an approach.

First, the signing of the Lisbon agreement on the EU reform treaty has removed the main source of tension in Warsaw’s European policy. In the near future, the EU is unlikely to face a fresh challenge with as high a potential for conflict as last June’s constitutional summit.

Second, Germany will probably come to terms with the fact that the problems besetting its relationship with Poland cannot be reduced to the Kaczyński brothers’ policies. German Chancellor Angela Merkel will have a unique opportunity to improve the relationship – provided that she can come up with a serious set of proposals addressing  Poland’s concerns.

The big question is how the new government will craft its policy toward the United States. In a televised debate held two weeks before the elections, Tusk accused Jarosław Kaczyński of dealing with the United States “on his knees.” Whether this was merely a rhetorical maneuver to garner votes or an actual indication of coming changes in Warsaw’s approach to Washington remains to be seen. There can be no doubt, however, that the honeymoon in U.S.-Polish relations is over. The impact of EU membership on all levels of Polish foreign and domestic policy, together with the public’s growing disillusionment with virtually every aspect of the relationship with the United States, calls for, and is likely to bring about, a redefinition of this uneven partnership.

In coming months, the real litmus test for the incoming coalition’s new foreign policy is therefore less likely to come in European than in transatlantic affairs – with, for example, the final decisions on Missile Defense and the Polish reaction to a possible military strike against Iran. Regardless of the outcomes, the new government’s approach to international affairs is more likely to differ with that of its predecessor in style than in substance.

Olaf Osica is a research fellow at the Natolin European Centre in Warsaw.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Center for European Policy Analysis.