“Poland hasn’t been this isolated since partitions,” says opposition leader

Poland’s largest opposition party, the centrist Civic Platform (PO), has unveiled a foreign policy strategy for better relations with the European Union and the United States, as well as a more assertive eastern neighbourhood policy.

Speaking at a conference on Saturday, the party’s leader, Borys Budka, accused the ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party of “cutting the tongue out of Polish diplomacy” and “killing Poland’s foreign policy”.

A deputy foreign minister has, however, rejected PO’s accusations as groundless, and accused it of setting out an “unbelievably childish vision of foreign policy”.

“Poland has not been this isolated since the partitions,” Budka said, referring to the period when the country was wiped off the map of Europe after being divided between Russia, Austria (later Austria-Hungary) and Prussia (later Germany) between 1795 and 1918.

The PO leader asked if anyone in Europe knew the name of Poland’s current foreign minister, Zbigniew Rau, or that of his predecessor, Jacek Czaputowicz. Both are relatively low-profile figures, during whose terms parts of responsibility for foreign policy have been shifted to the prime minister’s office.

Budka himself has faced problems gaining recognition as the leader of Poland’s opposition. In a recent poll, just 18% of the public said they trust him while 48.5% distrust him – and over 8% of Poles do not know who he is.

During his speech, Budka outlined the three pillars of his party’s “Safe Poland” strategy: rebuilding relations with the EU; strengthening Poland’s partnership with the US; and rethinking the country’s strategy for its eastern neighbourhood.

On the former two issues, the PO leader said PiS was “ruining relations with the US and the EU” and “destroying the image of [Poland]”. The government has regularly clashed with Brussels over issues such as the rule of law.

It enjoyed close relations with the Trump administration, with which it was aligned on many issues, but now faces challenges in establishing a similar relationship with the new incumbent of the White House.

Speaking alongside Budka, Radosław Sikorski – a former foreign and defence minister and now PO MEP – said that foreign policy under PiS had served “to undermine EU integration from the very beginning” and create “an ideological alliance” with Donald Trump, which has now undermined relations with Joe Biden.

Whereas PiS has placed great emphasis on relations with Washington as the main plank of Poland’s defence policy, and is sceptical of deeper ties with Brussels, Budka declared that “further European integration will be one of the guarantors of our security”.

On eastern policy, Budka promised to “implement solutions making it impossible for the Russian Federation to influence Polish internal politics” He also accused the government of “an alliance with Putin’s admirers”, in a reference to a recent meeting with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Italy’s Matteo Salvini.

PiS has itself often accused PO of failing to stand up to Russia during its time in government from 2007 to 2015, and even of colluding with Moscow over the Smolensk air disaster that killed President Lech Kaczyński.

Sikorski also called for Poland to take a leading role in “co-steering the EU’s eastern policy”, and for the foreign ministry’s leading role in this area to be restored.

However, a deputy foreign minister, Paweł Jabłoński, argued that Poland and the foreign ministry is already active in this area, and accused PO of setting out an “unbelievably childish vision of foreign policy”.

“Today in Europe, in the European Union, there is no more active minister of foreign affairs than Minister Zbigniew Rau,” Jabłoński told TVN24. “Minister Zbigniew Rau absolutely sets the tone for these activities in Ukrainian matters…Today, Poland is the country that coordinates our allies.”

Sikorski also argued that Poland’s position has been undermined by its tumbling in international rankings of democracy, media freedom and corruption perception during PiS’s rule.

Since 2015, Poland has fallen from its highest ever position, of 18th, in the World Press Freedom Index to its lowest, of 64th, this year. It has also slumped from 29th to 45th place in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.

Poland is also no longer classified as a democracy by Freedom House and was named as the world’s “most autocratising country” of the last decade by V-Dem.

Main image credit: Platforma_org/Twitter

Maria Wilczek

Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.