Kaczyński, Le Pen, Orban and other leaders meet in Warsaw to reject EU’s “social engineering”

A number of European right-wing and far-right leaders – including France’s Marine Le Pen and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán  – gathered yesterday in Warsaw for a summit to discuss the future of the European Union.

The event concluded with a joint statement in which the participants pledged to “put a stop to the disturbing idea of creating a Europe governed by a self-appointed elite” and to the “social engineering aiming at creating a new ‘European nation’”. They instead placed emphasis on the role of “free and equal nation states”.

Despite rumours in Hungarian media that the summit would lead to the formation of a new political grouping, no such development was announced. Instead, the leaders stated that they would meet again “within the next couple of months” in Spain, whose Vox party was among those attending.

The significance of the gathering, known as the Warsaw Summit, was also undermined somewhat by the decision of Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy’s Lega party, not to attend.

He was among those invited last month when the event was first announced by Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party. The summit followed a previous meeting between the leaders in Budapest in April and the issuing of a joint declaration by them in July.

Addressing the summit yesterday, PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński warned that “as a result of German actions, Europe is moving towards federalisation”. He also accused Germany of trying to “eliminate the historical memory of the 20th century” and of “rejecting all kinds of identities, even gender identities”.

Such trends, he said, “pose a threat to civilisation” and could even result in the destruction of democracy. “Freedom is regressing,” he added, quoted by Do Rzeczy.

In recent days, a number of senior figures in Poland’s government, including the prime minister, have warned against what they say are attempts, led by Germany, to create a European “superstate”.

One deputy minister accused Germany of seeking to establish a “Fourth Reich”, and numerous sources have said that Kaczyński used the same words during a recent meeting of the PiS parliamentary caucus.

Speaking at the Warsaw Summit, Kaczyński said the aim of the parties present should be “cooperation, coordination and building the perspective of unity of the two right-wing groups in the European Parliament”.

Currently, PiS is part of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) grouping, which also includes, among others, Brothers of Italy (FdI), Vox and the Czech Civic Democratic Party (ODS). However, the leader of FdI, Giorgia Meloni, and of ODS, Petr Fiala, who recently became Czech prime minister, were notably absent from the summit.

Meanwhile, Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), who both did attend the Warsaw Summit, sit in the Identity and Democracy Party in the European Parliament. That group also includes Alternative for Germany (AfD), which was not present in Warsaw.

PiS has faced criticism in some quarters for moving closer to parties that have close links to the Kremlin. As recently as 2019, Kaczyński said that Le Pen’s party is “obviously linked to Moscow and receives its support”. He raised concern that RN’s “policies could be adjusted by the Kremlin if they became a strong force in the EU”.

Orbán, Salvini, and FPÖ are among others that have been sympathetic towards Russia. PiS, by contrast, take a strongly anti-Russian line, and Kaczyński himself has accused the Kremlin of being behind the ongoing crisis on Poland’s border with Belarus.

Tomasz Lis, editor of the liberal Newsweek Polska, condemned PiS for using the Warsaw Summit to “promote the fascist, nationalist, pro-Putin international”. He accused Kaczyński of seeking to reverse Poland’s integration with the West and to instead “begin a march to the East”.

In response to such claims, PiS MEP Tomasz Poręba, who was one of the organisers of the meeting, noted that the Polish opposition’s political allies in countries such as Germany, Austria and France have pursued pro-Russian policies, such as approving the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

PiS spokesman Radosław Fogiel admitted that the parties at the summit differ on many issues, reports Polsat News. But they also had much to unite them, he noted, such as the fact that they are “parties which primarily focus on the national interest, on the interest of citizens”.

Another PiS MP, Zdzisław Krasnodębski, argued that PiS is playing a “positive role as a conservative party [but] pro-European at the same time”. It is “changing the European right, leading it towards the centre”, he claimed.

Main image credit: MLP_officiel/Twitter

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.