Poland may have seen off the specious Israeli challenge to its new law banning any suggestion Poles were implicated in the Nazi Holocaust, but unfortunately its reaction was symptomatic of the ruling nationalist Law and Justice party’s (PiS) less creditable attitudes.
To the despair the EU, Jarosław Kaczyński’s government is becoming increasingly authoritarian. Brussels accuses it of meddling with the judiciary to make it politically accountable. It is also becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the anti-EU stance of Kaczyński’s government, which unusually for a Polish administration that has now been in power for over three years and remains widely popular.
However, the real cause for concern is Poland’s newfound xenophobia. At its most stark, Warsaw is refusing to take its EU-mandated allocation of refugees under the German-backed 2015 scheme. Other EU states, including Hungary, Slovakia and Austria, have resisted Brussels in this matter, but none have gone has far as the Poles in demonstrating a bigotry bordering on Islamophobia.
The authority of the European Union is being challenged directly. Any state that ignores a directive that has been agreed by member countries is at risk of penalties. In the past, as when Austria elected a former Nazi war criminal as president, such punishment amounted to little more than a slap on the wrist. Brussels suspended relations with Vienna but very quickly discovered that it was cutting off its own nose to spite its face. The EU quietly resumed full relations with Austria.
The real penalties can come with the suspension of payments from the EU budget. This was first considered two years ago in the case of Hungary’s resistance to accepting refugees. Now Poland is in the EU’s sights for its far more disdainful dismissal of Brussels. Eurocrats have drafted a range of measures that would probably be implemented bit by bit in the hope that Kaczyński will see the error of his ways and finally toe the line.
But there are serious risks involved here. The most basic is that Brussels is already much employed in complex and increasingly acrimonious Brexit negotiations with London. Though the Eurocracy is hardly short of highly-paid officials generating mountains of paperwork, it will be another matter if it is called upon to face a further critical challenge, which once again threatens the very existence of the Union.
The Polish government’s fractiousness is not a one off. Throughout EU member states, there is a rising tide of skepticism if not active dislike for the EU’s continuing drive toward ever-greater political and financial unity to complement its already dominant regulatory environment. In France, Holland, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands, political parties, generally from the right, have won significant proportions of the popular vote. That they have thus far been beaten off in elections does not mean that the source of their support has gone away. Indeed the way in which Brussels handles Poland and Hungary could well boost the Euro-skeptic votes in future national ballots. Germany’s visionary chancellor Angela Merkel whose dramatic humane response to the refugee crisis triggered a discreditable EU-wide pushback is entering the twilight of her 13 years in power and her influence over the EU is waning. If Brussels wields the big stick against Warsaw and Budapest, the clear danger is that the blows could splinter the union and open the door to nationalist bigots.
