Zbigniew Ziobro, the justice minister and leader of a junior partner in Poland’s ruling coalition, has suggested that his party would have already left the government if it did not mean that opposition leader Donald Tusk would come to power.
The remarks come amid escalating tensions within the governing camp. Yesterday saw a deputy minister from Ziobro’s hard-right United Poland (Solidarna Polska) party stripped of his powers after he publicly criticised Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
The conflict revolves around relations with the European Union, and in particular the continued blocking of Poland’s funds by the European Commission. Were United Poland to depart the government over the issue, it would leave the main ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party without a parliamentary majority.
With its hardline coalition partner unwilling to compromise with the EU to unlock frozen funds, and the opposition unlikely to want to help, the ruling PiS party faces difficult choices – including the possibility of minority rule – writes @AleksSzczerbiak https://t.co/5dygFDhnU9
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) December 6, 2022
“If it weren’t for the fact that leaving the coalition would mean giving over Poland to Donald Tusk, the paths of United Poland and PiS would have parted ways,” Ziobro told conservative weekly Sieci.
The justice minister – as he has in the past – criticised Morawiecki in particular for agreeing in December 2020 to the EU’s so-called conditionality mechanism, which allows the European Commission to make the disbursement of funds contingent upon meeting rule-of-law standards.
“For the first four years of our rule, the eurocrats tore out their hair because they could only wave the toothless Article 7 and pass incoherent resolutions in the European Parliament,” said Ziobro.
Article 7 is the EU’s pre-existing tool for punishing countries deemed to be violating the bloc’s values. It was triggered against Poland by the European Commission in 2017 but has since failed to be implemented because it requires unanimity among member states and Hungary has pledged to veto it.
However, “after the prime minister agreed to new mechanisms [in December 2020], they [the eurocrats] gained a real tool of economic blackmail”, Ziobro told Sieci. He noted that he and his party had at the time warned that this would happen, but Morawiecki “made an arbitrary decision without any consultation”.
Since then, the European Commission has blocked the payment of billions of euros that Poland was due to receive from the EU’s post-pandemic recovery fund and has withheld further billions from Poland’s cohesion funds.
In his interview with Sieci, Ziobro also accused Morawiecki of signing up to an “energy transformation plan dictated by the eurocrats”. This will end up costing Poland – which has the EU’s most coal-dependent energy sector – hundreds of billions of zloty, said the justice minister.
Yesterday, a leading figure from Ziobro’s party, Jacek Ozdoba, was stripped of his functions as deputy climate and environment minister. The decision came after Ozdoba last week accused Morawiecki of being responsible for a “series of failures” and of “misleading” his partners in government.
Rzecznik @SolidarnaPL i wiceminister w rządzie PiS @OzdobaJacek uważa, że okres premierostwa Mateusza Morawieckiego to „pasmo porażek”. pic.twitter.com/z6QfJYA0Gz
— Patryk Michalski (@patrykmichalski) November 30, 2022
In response to Ziobro’s accusations, Morawiecki argued yesterday that “saying we have given more powers to Brussels is a misunderstanding”, reports Wirtualna Polska. He offered to “explain it in detail if Ziobro wants”.
Morawiecki has received the public backing of PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński, who holds no formal position in government but is the most powerful figure in the ruling coalition.
Speaking to Radio Wrocław, Kaczyński said that Ziobro “simply does not see all the complications” of Poland’s relations with the EU. “Mistakes do happen but, generally speaking, the line that is represented by the prime minister is a line with no alternative,” he continued.
The tensions within the ruling camp have raised speculation that Ziobro could lose a vote of confidence called against him in parliament by the opposition. The leader of a small grouping that until recently voted with PiS, Kukiz’15, has suggested he will vote against Ziobro in the motion.
However, Morawiecki himself said yesterday that, regardless of his differences with the justice minister, he “will of course defend” him and “the unity of the coalition” during the confidence vote.
“We are a large tent, combining different views,” said Morawiecki, quoted by wPolityce. “We have extremely Eurosceptic, radical voices, but we also have very Eurorealist voices.”
Main image credit: Krystian Maj / KPRM
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.
