Poland’s PiS wants to reject Green Deal after European elections, says Kaczyński

Poland’s opposition national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party sees opposing the Green Deal as one of its goals at the forthcoming election to the European Parliament, party chairman Jarosław Kaczyński said at a party convention at the weekend.

The Green Deal is a threat to Poland’s agriculture, said Kaczyński, who also announced that PiS will block the migration pact and defend the Polish currency in the new term of the European Parliament.

But PiS’s opposition to the deal, a package of policy initiatives to help the EU reach climate neutrality, has been ridiculed by politicians from other parties, who point out that the PiS prime minister participated in its conception when in power.

Kaczyński argued that the Green Deal will ultimately translate into higher energy prices, higher operating costs for businesses, and higher prices for transport.

“We have to make it clear…We are going to this [European] parliament to reject the Green Deal,” said the PiS leader. “In its present version…it harms Polish agriculture, in practice leads to its wiping out.”

In 2021, when the Green Deal was being worked out in Brussels and PiS was governing Poland, Kaczyński argued that rejecting the project would mean Warsaw would become marginalised within the EU.

“To participate in this project…to move Europe forward, and in particular countries like Poland, this plan is something in which it is worth participating even at some cost,” Kaczyński said in an interview with Polskie Radio at the time.

Meanwhile, on Saturday Kaczyński also listed other issues that he sees as a threat to Poland.

“These include…the migration pact, changes to the treaties, the euro, security, protection of the Polish countryside and, finally, the essence of Polishness, namely freedom. There is no Poland without freedom,” he said.

In his view, “no decent Pole” can agree to the treaty changes proposed last year by the EP’s constitutional affairs committee, which would shift the EU’s decision-making process away from unanimity among member states and further towards decisions by a qualified majority.

Both of Poland’s main parties, PiS and the centrist Civic Platform (PO), which is also the biggest party in the ruling coalition that replaced PiS in government in December, have declared that they will oppose the changes.

“This is totally unacceptable. It would mean that what was our treasure [Poland’s independence] would be just another historical incident just like the years 1918-1939,” Kaczyński said, referring to the interwar period following Poland regaining its independence after 123 years.

He also argued that the EU wants to impose the euro on Poland and that 360 tonnes of Polish gold would “go to Frankfurt”, where the European Central Bank (ECB) is headquartered. Under its accession treaty with the EU, Poland is obliged to adopt the EU’s single currency, but no deadline for doing so has been set.

The party will commit its MEP candidates to sign a statement with seven key priorities including invalidating the Green Deal, stopping the migration pact and treaty changes, opposing the introduction of the euro, defending the interests of the Polish countryside, strengthening Poland’s security, and defending Polish freedom.

“Our white and red team is entering this election, this great undertaking, with full conviction, with full determination that we must defend Polish values, Polish interests and the Polish raison d’état,” said Kaczyński.

Kaczyński’s speech was widely criticised by politicians from the ruling coalition as well as another opposition party, the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja).

“The Green Deal was signed by [the former] Prime Minister [Mateusz] Morawiecki and introduced by [agriculture] commissioner [Janusz] Wojciechowski. Both are Law and Justice politicians,” Jarosław Makowski, a PO politician and deputy mayor of the southern Polish city of Katowice, wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

A similar argument was raised by Confederation leader Sławomir Mentzen.

“Kaczynski says PiS is going to the election to reject the Green Deal. It wouldn’t be a problem if they hadn’t agreed to it in the first place. PiS signed the Green Deal and now we are all going to pay for that mistake,” he said.

Meanwhile, Donald Tusk, the current prime minister and former European Council president, quoted another of Kaczyński’s statements.

“We are going there to say ‘no’ to all this, but we are not saying ‘no’ because today we say ‘yes’. We say: development. We say: strong European agriculture. We are saying ‘no’ to everything that is supposed to oppose the development not only of Poland, but also of Europe,” said Kaczyński.

“Everyone is laughing, yet they should be afraid,” Tusk responded on X.

“‘Today ‘Yes’, [but] the day after the elections they will set off with pro-Putin parties to destroy the [European] Union. Because your vote was missing.”

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Main image credit: PiS press materials

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.