Poland’s outgoing populist president, Andrzej Duda, has won more years in force in elections that threaten to weaken an already strained relationship with the European Union.
Duda is subsidised through the conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS), which now has a transparent mandate until parliamentary elections 3 years from now, to carry out reforms in the judiciary and the media, policies heavily criticized through the European Commission for undermining the rule. of the law in Poland.
Just before the election, Duda won the help of U.S. President Donald Trump to make a stopover in Washington. Dating can be troubling to the EU if Trump wins November’s presidential election, as the EU is trying to become a united force on the world stage.
“European countries are already placing ocean liners with Trump, which is problematic because the US and the EU are not cooperating on multilateral issues,” Pawel Zerka of the European Council on Foreign Relations expert group said.
“In the EU, there is an attempt to strengthen its European strategic sovereignty and its ability to act independently of the United States that Europe can no longer count on as it did before.
“But EU partners will not have Poland in such a business, because the Polish government will have more powerful ties to Washington under Trump than with the EU,” Zerka said.
There is something more urgent for Poland in terms of how it positions itself.
The country could agree to compromise on its rule of law and climate change policies in return for generous funding from the EU. But in another scenario, it could turn down the additional EU money and have the freedom to implicate its policies.
Zerka said the latter is the most likely, which would mean a weaker link and a greater confrontation with Brussels.
“The pro-Europeanism of Polish society would be tested, the Law and Justice party would get a flexible way to use Europe for its domestic electoral political purposes, which would be necessary, given that it could face a deteriorating economic situation. “He said.
The challenge for the bloc will be whether democracy and minority team rights in Europe can and whether it will expand new equipment to those rights in the budget negotiations.
But in the face of economic devastation tensions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the EU is focusing primarily on rescuing its southern neighbours, Spain and Italy, and attention may simply move away from democracy in the east.
Hungary and Poland have been criticised through the EU for their records of the rule of law in years.
The Director of the European Commission, von der Leyen, has also given little sign, unlike her predecessors, that she will do so on the issue of the rule of law.
This may lead to the systemic effect of THE OCCIDENTAL EU Member States which are wasting the hope that their eastern neighbours will be able to fully join the bloc, which would be negative for countries such as Croatia and Bulgaria, which are at an early stage to adopt the euro.
“It would be unfair if the rest of Europe had hope in the East,” Zerka said.
“For many years, the EU has been aiming to bring these countries in combination closer through the structural funds, but because of Poland and Hungary, that hope is evaporating.”
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