The Sunday elections will end with a large three-way election, which has been moving since the parliamentary elections of 15 October and a permanent electoral run which has been underway since the end of erstwhile holidays. Everyone is tired of it, including politicians, as was seen in the European campaign. Its participants frequently seemed as if they were driving on fumes, on autopilot repeating the learned issues. In the European campaign, Polish politicians resembled footballers in the second half of the game, incapable to fight for the winning goal, trying to last only someway to the penalty. The voters are surely tired, which will translate into attendance.
This year Poland celebrated its 20th anniversary in the Union. No political force has utilized this condition to launch a debate on what kind of EU we want in the next 20 or even 5 years, in which direction the Community should evolve to respond to challenges that even the best discipline fiction authors and related species in 2004 have not yet dreamed of.
Three stories dominated the campaign. The first threatened the Union as a threat to Polish sovereignty and Polish prosperity. The second dealt very loosely with European themes. The 3rd advocated further deepening European integration, but it was not convincing.
Eurosceptic correction
The first communicative belonged primarily to the PiS. Actually, from election losses in October Jarosław Kaczyński travelled around Poland and reiterated that the planned improvement of the EU treaties poses a threat to Polish sovereignty and that if the Law and Justice Office does not halt the "from Brussels, which is truly Berlin" changes, then independent Poland will again be a "accidental creation", like the Second Polish Republic.
Soon this communicative was joined by the 1 about Green Order And she's the 1 who dominated the PiS. The organization and its supporting media presented the task as a conspiracy of European elites to destruct the competitiveness of the Polish economy, threatening the prosperity of Polish families in the period 2015–2023.
Attacking the Green Deal, PiS made a 180-degree turn against its own positions a fewer years ago, erstwhile Kaczyński was right to say that rejecting it would condemn Poland to marginalization. present Kaczyński, driving in the Green Deal of rhetoric, is increasingly openly placing his organization in position Climate negationism – which, given that we are dealing with the largest organization of opposition, may prove to be a serious problem for the full Polish political strategy and its ability to conduct an elementaryly rational climate policy.
The question is how effective these attacks on the Green Deal will be. 'Cause I don't think the subject ate as much as they counted the PiS losses. The Warsaw demonstration against the project, organized by the Allied Solidarity from PiS, was not a large mobilization success. The protest of farmers in Brussels, to which Jarosław Kaczyński went on Tuesday, was a failure.
In scaring the Union and the Green Deal of the Law and Justice, they bid with the Confederation. The Formation of Bosak and Mentzen, who may end up on the podium, ahead of the 3rd Road, attacks in this run the PiS as a organization that despite all its "swingenistic" rhetoric actually subjugated Poland's power in Brussels, agreeing to the reducing power of our vote in the Union by the Treaty of Lisbon, a common EU debt, the conditionality principle, the KPO and the entered milestones, yet the Green Deal. As these punches are customs, the PiS is even more keen on anti-EU rhetoric to become credible of the Eurosceptic electorate, while besides fostering fear and distrust of the Union among its own voters.
Even if the PiS does not win thanks to this strategy, even if the Confederacy does not take place on the podium, it can already be said that this run has made a very clear decision of the Polish European debate to the Eurosceptic side. The PiS has moved to the most Eurosceptic positions in history. The Confederacy has a chance for its best result. Finally, it is hard to look for a large Euro-enthusiasm in the message of the Civic Coalition or the 3rd Way.
In order not to give PiS electoral fuel, KO has mostly taken over the "eurorealist" criticism of the migration pact or the Green Deal in this campaign, Prime Minister Tusk makes it clear that this is not the time to discuss the revision of the European treaties and deepening integration, due to the fact that "the naive Euro-enthusiam" can only harm the Union. A akin speech hits the 3rd Way. The party, erstwhile distinguished by its ambitious climate agenda, distances itself from the Green Deal, Szymon Hołownia from her first Euro MP, Róża Thun, whose definitely pro-European attitude becomes a clear political problem for Poland 2050, and TD underlines scepticism towards treaty reform.
The fact that this is simply a Eurosceptic shift, frequently establishing the Union as a near-major threat to Poland, is made at the minute of a very real threat from the east, is profoundly paradoxical. If the shift we have observed in the run is longer and deeper, the polexit's postulates will shortly begin to be reported by characters much more serious than Stanisław Żółtek.
Should the Union be solely protected against Russian mire?
The KO communicative was more about safety than about the Union. The Tusk organization pointed to 2 sources of its threat: external, eastern, and internal, from the PiS and another right-wing populists. Both, as she argued in the run Platform, join together. Donald Tusk made it very clear during the rally at the Castle Square on 4 June: the triumph of the Law and their populist allies in the Euro-Elections is simply a triumph of Moscow, the weakening of the Union brings closer to Poland “Russian mir”.
Tusk is right about this issue, the question is whether the Union truly is to be solely our insurance policy, protecting from falling into the Russian sphere of influence. Talking about an alternate to the EU or the "Russian mir" and its local allies is not wrong, but this should only be the beginning of a discussion on how the Union and Poland in the Union should change, in order to respond effectively to the challenges facing us in the next 2 decades.
Not only Russia, but besides the Union-China-United States triangle, the EU's relations with the global south, the challenge posed by migration pressures in this direction, problems and opportunities posed by artificial intelligence, not to mention the most crucial challenge today, or climate. The political party, which led first the European Council and then the European People's Party, could at least be expected to realize these problems.
Based almost exclusively on security, the Eurocampan may retaliate on the KO erstwhile a fewer days before the voter silence breaks out a crisis with soldiers detained by the Military Gendarmerie for utilizing weapons at the border.
Left didn't take the chance
The run besides featured a more ambitious communicative about Europe's future, which the Left presented. However, this formation did not take advantage of the chance given by being the only definitely pro-European formation in Poland.
This was a run in which – without risking the crisis in the ruling coalition – it was possible to emphasize its difference from the KO and the 3rd Way, to show itself as a force behind a serious discussion about the future of the Union. Left didn't do it. It was a good thought that during the Wednesday debate representing this formation, Joanna Scheering-Wielgus, alternatively of asking Boris Budka or Michał Kobosce a question, showing the differences between her organization and coalition partners, attacked the Confederacy, with which in the European elections the Left does not fight for a akin electorate.
Although the Left had any good proposals in this run for deepening integration and strengthening democratic mechanisms in the Union, the clear communicative on Europe's future has been weak. The left came with its message mainly to the already convinced voters and did not even effort to scope anyone else. Postulates specified as the European Housing Fund supporting social housing for rent – worth at least a discussion in itself – could seem as if she promised voters that she would get them what she had failed to do in Warsaw, where she yet co-ordinated.
It is not just the Euro-pensions of Polish politicians
Given all this, it is truly hard to resent people who will choose a couch on Sunday, a barbecue, a bike, a walk, a Netflix, a book or any another form of rest. It is worth remembering, however, that the stake of these elections is not only the one, which of disappointing Polish candidates will supply himself with a well-paid occupation abroad for 5 years, but besides how much the future Europarliament will decision to the right.
The strengthening of populists and anti-European forces should truly concern us. possibly it is nevertheless worth taking advantage of the fact that we have any influence on what the next European Parliament will look like.
