Blocking EU funds is “attempt by Western elites to influence Polish elections”, says president

The withholding of money from Poland by the EU is part of an attempt by “liberal-left elites” in the West to remove the Polish government, says President Andrzej Duda. But he is confident Poles will resist such external efforts to impose something on them, just as they “threw off the Soviet shackles”.

Meanwhile, two government figures have accused the main opposition party of conspiring with allies in Berlin and Brussels to use the issue of Poland’s EU funds to help them come to power. Opposition leader Donald Tusk is a “collaborator” in his “genes”, says the justice minister.

Over the weekend, reports emerged – and were confirmed by European Commission sources – that Brussels is withholding billions of euros from Poland’s EU cohesion funds due to ongoing concerns over the rule of law. The commission had previously frozen €36 billion in post-pandemic recovery funds.

In an interview with state broadcaster TVP, Duda, who is a government ally, said that he hoped the reports were just “media rumours, attempts to intimidate [Poland] by dissatisfied and frustrated representatives of various liberal-left elites”.

However, “if these media reports are confirmed, it will be clear that European institutions are continuing to meddle in Polish politics and are trying to force Polish society to change the government in Poland”, continued Duda.

“If such actions were actually carried out, it is an obvious attempt to influence the freedom of elections in Poland,” he added. Parliamentary elections are scheduled for next autumn, with the ruling coalition – led by the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party – seeking an unprecedented third term.

Duda told TVP that, while “the lips of representatives of the liberal West are full of phrases about democracy, this democracy has to look like the rule of elites, not the people…When societies really decide, that is not democracy for the [elites], because governments they do not like are elected”.

However, the president said he “deeply believes that Poles do not like having something forced on them…We fought to throw off the Soviet shackles that imposed an unwanted government on us, and I hope Poles will not allow this”.

“I hope that western Europe and those who sit in European institutions, even if they have liberal-leftist views, understand this,” declared Duda. “Let them look at the pages of history and find out what Poles do not like.”

Poland’s hardline justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, yesterday made similar accusations of an EU plot to influence Poland’s elections, though he also directly accused the largest opposition party, Civic Platform (PO), and its leader, Donald Tusk, of being complicit in the plan.

“PO and Tusk are responsible for blocking the European funds due to Poland, along with German politicians who provide them with great support, including the German head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen,” said Ziobro, quoted by RMF24.

“[Tusk] knows he has almost no chance of returning to power in democratic fair elections, so he is looking for these kinds of measures, with the help of German politicians and von der Leyen,” added the justice minister.

In fact, polls show that, while the PiS-led coalition remains likely to finish first in the elections, it may not achieve a parliamentary majority. That could open the way for opposition parties to unite and create a government, with PO likely to be its largest element.

In a further tweet, Ziobro described Tusk as a “collaborator” working with Germany to “make sure that Poland is starved”. “Genes unchanged for decades,” added the justice minister. Tusk’s grandfather was conscripted into the German army in World War Two.

The Polish government’s spokesman, Piotr Müller, likewise noted that one of the EU officials who had spoken about Poland’s funds being blocked, Marc Lemaître, previously worked as chief of staff to two PO politicians – Danuta Hübner and Janusz Lewandowski – when they were European Commissioners.

“We are not naive, we know that there are forces in EU institutions that try to [block Poland’s funds],” said Müller, quoted by Wirtualna Polska. But in this case, there has been no official communication to Poland that its cohesion funds are frozen, he added.

As tensions with the EU over the rule of law and the freezing of funds have increased in recent weeks, PiS figures have increasingly accused Brussels of engineering the conflict in an effort to oust the Polish government.

Last month, PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński warned that Tusk is working under “foreign orders” to “enslave Poland” as part of a “German-Russian plan to rule over Europe”. Next year’s elections will offer a choice between the “Polish” ruling party and the “German” opposition, he later added.

Main image credit: Jakub Szymczyk/KPRP

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.