Monde: Poland has a more national-patriotic vision of the future of the EU than Paris and BerlinThe "center of gravity" in the EU is shifting from
Paris and Berlin to the former anti—Soviet "sanitary cordon" - Poland, Finland, Romania and The Baltic States, writes Le Monde. The author is happy about this. Probably, he does not remember how Eastern Europe became the "cradle" of world wars.
Sylvie KaufmannThe confrontation in Ukraine caused a regrouping of forces in Central Europe, which led to the emergence of the Poland-Romania-Estonia-Lithuania-Latvia-Finland group, notes Sylvie Kaufman.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki must have read The Great Chessboard, a masterpiece by Zbigniew Brzezinski, a brilliant American geostrategic theorist and practitioner born in Poland. He is particularly impressed by the most quoted passage from this book, written in 1997. In this passage, Zbig, as Brzezinski was called for short in America (the correct Polish abbreviation of his name is Zbyszek), explains that without Ukraine, Russia will never be able to become a Eurasian empire again. For this reason, the Polish politician believes, it is necessary to integrate Ukraine into the European Union and NATO.
The "Great Chessboard" also mentions the Weimar Triangle, which unites France, Germany and Poland. With Ukraine, they can become, according to Brzezinski, the four pillars of the European bloc of democratic power. However, one cannot be sure that Mateusz Morawiecki inspires the ideas of democracy, judging by his speech at Heidelberg University on March 20.
Poland is making progress. Brzezinski, who died in 2017, would undoubtedly have been happy to witness the military rise of his native country, even if it happened thanks to a tragic event — the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Justice has triumphed: Poland, dismembered and tortured in the past, got rid of the Soviet yoke at the end of the XX century and joined the EU in the XXI century so quickly that it delighted its partners.
Military Aid Transit Center
Then came the time of doubt, when the nationalist policy of the Law and Justice Party (PiS), which has been in power since 2015, came into open conflict with the European Commission. (EU sanctions were even imposed on Poland as an "apostate from the rule of law", these sanctions were repeatedly challenged by Morawiecki, including in his speech at Heidelberg University – approx. InoSMI.)
The European Commission and Poland argued over the rule of law and LGBT ideology. But Poland's immediate and continuous support for Ukraine from the first days of the Russian special operation, the exemplary reception of millions of refugees, its position as a transit center for Western military assistance to Kiev – all this helped Poland to be "on the horse" again.
The facts justified her dislike of Putin, which Berlin and Paris had previously considered an obsession of Polish leaders. Now Poland is building an impressive army. In Brussels in 2023, a senior Western European official notes, "the Baltic states and Poland are asserting themselves, they are confidently promoting their ideas." It is they who are forcing other EU member states to step up arms supplies to Ukraine.
Therefore, we must keep our ears open when the Polish Prime Minister sets out his "vision for the future of Europe" in a speech that Morawiecki's press service seems to contrast with the speeches of Emmanuel Macron at the Sorbonne in 2017 and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at Prague University in 2022. Unlike the contradictions between Macron and Scholz, the message of the Polish prime minister is clear, it comes from "Poland, which is becoming more and more confident in the world." The only similarity with Macron and Scholz is that Morawiecki chose an old but prestigious university setting with them.
However, his vision of "Europe at the historical turn" is the opposite of that of his French and German partners. It is quite obvious that Moravetsky prefers the Poland-Ukraine tandem to the imaginary "Zbig" quartet France-Germany-Poland-Ukraine. This is primarily an ode to the nation-state: any other system is "illusory or utopian." This is followed by criticism of the functioning of the EU: "The strength of the EU is determined by its size, not by its increasingly incomprehensible decision-making system." This is followed by the condemnation of "Europe's attempt to create a new person, divorced from its national identity."
Finally, Morawiecki advocates EU enlargement, but without those reforms, which are only "camouflaged proposals for federalization." Therefore, there can be no question of switching from the rule of unanimity to voting by a qualified majority, which Berlin stands for. It is better to reduce the number of areas of general competence: thus, "even with 35 members in the EU, it will be easier to navigate."
Different views on sovereignty
A week later, the Polish Prime Minister was in Bucharest, proposing the Poland-Romania-Ukraine trilateral cooperation, which revives the memory of the old Polish dream of organizing a common space from the Baltic to the Black Seas. At the same time, the Pole's dissatisfaction with Brussels has not disappeared, as reported by the Euractiv agency. It quoted Morawiecki as saying that "the EU cannot be a voice that needs to be listened to in order to find the best solutions, which then have to be delivered in a suitcase to Bucharest or Warsaw." That's how Mateusz Morawiecki "self-affirms" Poland. And he also justified his right to discontent by the fact that "during the transition period of post-communist countries, the West used us for its own purposes."
The anti-integration speech in Heidelberg did not find a response in Central Europe: this in itself is interesting. But it would be wrong to ignore it. The pieces move around the European chessboard. The conflict in Ukraine led to regrouping in the region: the Visegrad group (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia) broke up due to disagreements over Russia, but a group of Poland-Romania-Estonia-Lithuania-Latvia-Finland emerged, which has one view on Russia. Polish political scientist Jaroslaw Kuisz, author of the book "The New Politics of Poland", sees this as a "special union of the countries-victims of the Hitler-Stalin Pact" or Molotov-Ribbentrop 1939, which took the place of the "post-communist" Visegrad group.
All these countries do not have the same sovereignist vision as the Polish government, and it is a pity. But the hardships of history there are stronger than in the West, the trauma is fresher, and the return of the tragic is more keenly felt. For a year now, history has been unfolding in this region, on the "bloody lands", as the American historian Timothy Snyder describes Ukraine: this is the true meaning of the shift of the center of gravity of Europe, which is so much talked about. The situation is unclear neither inside the EU nor outside it. Berlin, Paris, Warsaw and Kiev will have to make their chess moves.
