A further three regions in Poland have withdrawn their anti-LGBT resolutions after they caused the European Commission to put on hold talks over EU funds.
Yesterday, the local parliaments in the provinces of Podkarpackie, Lublin and Małopolska provinces voted to remove their declarations, following the same decision by Świętokrzyskie last week. Together, the regions account for almost a quarter of Poland’s population and land area.
🏳️🌈BREAKING
🇵🇱4 out of 5 Polish regions have now repealed the ‘LGBT Free Zone’-resolutions – after the EU threatened to take away 126 million Euro from the COVID-19 Recovery Fund and possibly a few billion of the Cohesion Fund.
There’s no place for discrimination in the EU!🇪🇺✊ pic.twitter.com/kV59O0VoTb
— Rémy Bonny 🏳️🌈🇪🇺 (@RemyBonny) September 27, 2021
As a result, only one of the five provinces threatened with losing EU funds, Łódź, has maintained its resolution. However, whereas the other four regions adopted declarations opposing “LGBT ideology”, Łódź implemented a so-called “charter of family rights” that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman but does not mention LGBT directly.
There are still around a hundred lower-level administrative units that continue to have anti-LGBT resolutions or family charters – which also pledge to “protect children from moral corruption” – in place.
Such declarations have been passed with the support of local politicians from the nationally ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which has itself pursued a vocal campaign against “LGBT ideology” in recent years.
The threat of losing EU funds has, however, caused some divisions within PiS and between it and its partners in the United Right (Zjednoczona Prawica) ruling coalition.
During a tense session of the provincial parliament of Małopolska yesterday, the opposition’s move to repeal the anti-LGBT declaration was only passed after a number of PiS councillors abstained from voting. Some from the party, including Jan Duda – chairman of the parliament and father of President Andrzej Duda – voted to keep the declaration.
In Lublin , however, it was mostly thanks to the votes of PiS councillors that the province’s declaration was changed to one with references to “LGBT” removed but still pledging to protect “the institution of the family and schools based on Christian values”, reports Interia.
In Podkarpackie, the anti-LGBT resolution was replaced by one declaring it a “region of tolerance”. Among those opposed was United Poland (Solidarna Polska), a hard-right junior member of the ruling coalition.
Marcin Warchoł, a deputy justice minister from United Poland, appealed to the provincial parliament not to “succumb to terror and blackmail”. He warned that withdrawing the resolution would “embolden the European Commission” to make “further demands”, including possibly the right for same-sex couples to adopt children.
However, an opposition councillor, Joanna Frydrych of the Civic Coalition (KO), welcomed the fact that the province had chosen to “stand for equality, tolerance, human rights and the rule of law”, reports RMF24.
At the start of this month, the European Commission wrote to officials in the five Polish provinces to inform them that EU pandemic recovery funds will be “put on hold” until they address concerns over their anti-LGBT resolutions.
That put tens of millions of euros at risk. However, there were concerns that other EU funds – potentially worth billions – could also be threatened.
As well as provinces, some smaller local authorities have also begun to withdraw their anti-LGBT resolutions after Norway threatened to cut the grants it provides to support local civil society (which are separate from EU funds).
Main image credit: Adrianna Bochenek/Agencja Gazeta
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.
