© Agencja Gazeta/Adam Stepien via REUTERS

The outcome of Poland’s presidential election on July 12 will cause ripples not only in the country itself, but also in Europe. Formally, the Polish presidency is a mostly ceremonial post, though with the power to veto laws. Yet symbolically, the result of the election will shape whether Poland becomes more open or closed—and its role within the post-Brexit, coronavirus-era EU.

Since 2015, Poland has been governed by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which combines social conservatism with a statist approach to the economy. While not opposed to Poland’s EU membership, it has adopted a more defiant attitude to the EU, similar to that of Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán. Its overhaul of the country’s judiciary, including the Supreme Court, has led to a drawn-out conflict with the European Commission, which has accused the PiS government of undermining the rule of law.

In this election, Poles will choose between Andrzej Duda, the PiS-backed president (he left the party after he was elected in 2015), and Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw, who hails from the centrist Civic Platform (PO), the old party of Donald Tusk, who served as Polish prime minister before taking on the presidency of the European Council. Both of the candidates were born in 1972, have a background in academia, and served as members of the European Parliament. Politically, though, they are on opposite sides of the PO-PiS conflict that has dominated Polish politics for more than a decade.

PiS vs. PO, Reloaded

In the first round of the election on June 28, Duda came first with 43.5 percent of the vote, followed by Trzaskowski with 30.5 percent. The rest of the vote was split between several candidates: Szymon Hołownia, a liberal Catholic who ran as an independent, with 13.9 percent, far-right national Krzysztof Bosak, with 6.8 percent, agrarian candidate Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz with 2.4 percent, and center-left candidate Robert Biedroń. The other candidates got less than 0.3 percent. As no one candidate attracted over 50 percent of the votes, there will be a Duda-Trzaskowski runoff on July 12.

Despite the coronavirus epidemic, the health and economic situation has not figured prominently in the election campaign. Instead, Duda tried to mobilize socially conservative voters with homophobic rhetoric, calling LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) rights an “ideology” more destructive than communism. This was a direct attack on Trzaskowski, who signed an LGBT Declaration for Warsaw last year, after he was elected mayor.

Foreign policy hasn’t been much of a campaign issue, either, even though Poland’s president is the state representative in international affairs and commander-in-chief of the armed forced. At a basic level, this reflects the longstanding consensus in Polish politics, whereby Poland is firmly rooted in the EU and NATO. However, there are significant differences in emphasis between the two candidates.

A Visit to the White House

Duda has banked on relations with the United States. On June 24, four days before the first round, he made a last-minute visit to the White House to meet with President Donald Trump. Although no concrete decisions were made, the meeting was meant to show Poland’s close relationship with the US. The visit came with an apparent endorsement from Trump: “And I do believe he has an election coming up, and I do believe he’ll be very successful,” he said at the joint press conference with Duda in the Rose Garden. This raised eyebrows in Poland and beyond, with one European diplomat warning that Poland is taking a risk by being so close to such a controversial politician, who might not be re-elected later this year. Trzaskowski responded to Duda’s meeting Trump with a telephone conversation with former President Barack Obama the following week, during which they spoke about “the importance of Polish democracy within the EU and the significance of the US-Polish alliance.”

As president, Duda’s main foreign policy endeavor has been the Three Seas Initiative, a Polish-Croatian venture bringing together 12 Central European countries, including Austria, that seeks to improve cross-border energy, transport, and digital infrastructure in the region (its recent summits have been attended by representatives of the US and German governments). Although he is not against Poland’s membership in the EU, this has not stopped Duda from making disparaging statements about it. In 2018, for example, he called the EU an “imaginary community from which we don’t gain much …Of course we have the right to have expectations towards Europe—especially towards the Europe that left us to be the prey of the Russians in 1945—but above all we have the right to rule ourselves here on our own and decide what form Poland should have,” he said, speaking at an event in the town of Leżajsk, in the country’s south-east, which tends to be more pro-PiS. On another occasion, also in 2018, Duda likened EU membership to the partition of Poland, when the country was divided between Prussia, Austria, and Russia from 1795 until 1918. This kind of rhetoric reflects the wider tendency in PiS to speak of the EU in terms of “us” versus “them.”

An Active Role

In contrast, Trzaskowski—who served as Poland’s Europe minister from 2014 to 2015 in the PO-led government before PiS came to power—has tended to emphasize the active role Poland has to play in Europe, not least after Brexit. “We will not substitute Britain, but we can offer this young spirit, this dynamism, this openness and perspective,” he told me in an interview in Warsaw last year, in English (one of the several languages he speaks). “The partitions, the Second World War, then communism stifled the dynamism and now it’s out in the open, and that is why we crave those possibilities,” he added, explaining that Poland could channel this energy into Europe.

Asked about his first visit abroad if he is elected president during a televised Q&A with journalists on July 6, Trzaskowski said that he would first invite the French and German presidents to Warsaw, to “renew the Weimar Triangle” which consists of France, Germany and Poland.  His first visit abroad will be to Brussels, to “fight for as large a budget as possible for Poland.” The country “is truly strong when it is strong and influential in the EU,” he said, adding that he will seek to rebuild its position, after its marginalization by PiS.

With strengthening fundamental values, notably the rule of law, among the priorities of the six-month German presidency of the Council of the European Union, which began on July 1, 2020, a change in president in Warsaw would also affect the dynamics of the Polish government’s conflict with the European Commission over the courts. Trzaskowski announced this week that, as president, he would use his power of veto to block any decision by the PiS government that does further damage to Poland’s courts.

With the two candidates neck and neck in the opinion polls, Berlin, Paris, and other capitals are preparing for both scenarios. In broad terms, Duda’s re-election would mean a continuation of the status quo. Meanwhile, a Trzaskowski victory could offer new opportunities in bilateral relations and within the EU (such as strengthening the Weimar Triangle at the presidential level, as mentioned above). In the election on July 12, Poles will not only be casting a vote for the type of country they want to live in, but also its role in Europe.

The post The Fight for Poland’s Place in Europe appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

Artwork © Dominik Herrmann

The mayoral election in Warsaw on October 21, 2018, was really between two candidates: Rafał Trzaskowski and PiS’s candidate Patryk Jaki, a bold 33-year-old deputy minister of justice. Despite Jaki’s energetic campaign, Trzaskowski won with over 56 percent of the vote, compared to Jaki’s 28 percent. That Warsaw chose the more liberal candidate is itself not surprising. Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, the city’s mayor since 2006 who decided not to run for a fourth term, was also a member of the liberal Civic Platform (PO) party. Yet the scope of Trzaskowski’s victory was unexpected; earlier, polls had suggested that he would need a second round two weeks later to beat Jaki.

His victory was greeted as a sign that PiS has reached a limit, at least in urban areas. PiS came first in the country’s sixteen regional assemblies, ahead of the PO-led centrist coalition. Yet it did poorly in the major cities, including Warsaw.

“A certain type was stopped,” Trzaskowski told Berlin Policy Journal in an interview, speaking English (one of his many languages) with an American accent. “People thought that PiS is indestructible, so this gave people a sense of empowerment, a sense that their vote counts. There was an incredible mobilization.”

Indeed, the voter turnout in Warsaw was almost 67 percent, compared to 47 percent in the previous local elections in 2014, and 54.8 percent of voters in Poland overall. That means that 250,000 more people voted this time. This record turnout reflects the sharp polarization between PiS and PO and the high stakes in Warsaw, both practical and symbolic. After the president, the post is the most high-profile directly elected post in Poland. Indeed, Lech Kaczyński—the late twin brother of PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński—served as mayor of Warsaw from 2002 until 2005 before being elected president of Poland.

A Warsaw native, Trzaskowski grew up in an intellectual household in the city’s Old Town. His father, Andrzej Trzaskowski, was a jazz composer, and his great-grandfather Bronisław a 19th century linguist. The young Trzaskowski studied English and International Relations at Warsaw University. After a Masters at the College of Europe’s branch in Natolin, Warsaw, he worked as a lecturer and wrote his PhD on the European Union. In the run-up to Poland’s EU accession in 2004, he was an adviser to the secretary of the European Integration Committee’s Office and then to PO’s delegation to the European Parliament.

High Achiever

His political debut came in 2009, when he was elected as an MEP. He stepped down in 2013 to become a minister in Tusk’s government, responsible for administration and digitization. When Tusk left for Brussels in 2014, Trzaskowski became deputy foreign minister for European affairs. But one year later, PiS won the parliamentary elections, forcing Trzaskowski and PO into opposition. While PiS busied itself overhauling the Polish public media and judiciary, Trzaskowski found that he could now do relatively little as an MP.

“My decision to run for mayor of Warsaw was simple. I was in parliament for three years. It was incredibly frustrating, with the government just disregarding the opposition,” he says. “I am in politics because I want to change the reality. I’m not there just to wander around the corridors or be on TV. So, I decided that if you want to change reality, you’ve got to be where the fight is.”

As mayor, Trzaskowski plans to focus on twelve areas, from free nurseries for all children in the Polish capital to fighting smog via better public transport and more greenery. “My program is about quality of life in Warsaw, focusing on the disabled, senior citizens, education, and sustainable growth. There is so much to be achieved,” he says.

For Trzaskowski, this represents a shift away from Gronkiewicz-Waltz’s emphasis on large infrastructure projects, toward smaller tweaks that make the city more liveable and inclusive. In 2019, Warsaw will have a budget of over 18 billion złoty (€4.2 billion), including a record 4.4 billion for education―though Trzaskowski is hoping for EU funds to help expand the city’s metro network. He also plans to appoint a representative for women’s affairs and to work with the local LGBT community.

“Islands of Freedom”

“With PiS governing Poland, there are these islands of freedom that you can develop against the prevailing trend,” he adds, referring to how urban voters have pushed back against PiS’s social conservatism and disregard for judicial independence.

As an expert on EU politics in both theory and practice, Trzaskowski is critical of how the Polish government has handled its dispute with the European Commission over its reform of the Supreme Court, which officials in Brussels warn undermines the rule of law.

“The problem with them is that they are so unprofessional. They are losing battle after battle because there is no sense of ownership. The prime minister is not the one making the final decision, it’s Kaczyński,” he explains, referring to PiS’s chairman, who is considered Poland’s real leader. “If you want to be effective in the EU, sometimes you have to build coalitions, propose things, cooperate with others. They still think in terms of ‘us’ versus ‘them’.”

Although PiS figures, including Kaczyński, say they oppose a “Polexit,” Trzaskowski warns that the government’s behavior will marginalize Poland in the EU. “They do not understand that unless you build a community together, sooner or later you will be out of it, either formally or in reality,” he explains.

Cheer to the Opposition

As Poland gears up for parliamentary elections in late 2019, Trzaskowski’s victory has cheered up the opposition, though PiS continues to lead in country-wide polls. At a PO gathering with journalists at a restaurant in Warsaw in late November, the mood was optimistic. In 2015, winning the presidential election helped PiS win the parliamentary elections that autumn. Similarly, if PO does well in the European elections in May 2019, it could pick up the momentum needed to win the parliamentary elections that autumn, senior party figures suggested. After that, they hope that Tusk will run for president in 2020 and defeat the PiS-allied incumbent, Andrzej Duda. Tusk’s term as president of the European Council ends in late 2019, but he has so far not said whether he plans to return to Polish politics.

Ahead of its next confrontations with PiS, what has PO learned from the Warsaw mayoral elections? “Above all, that it’s very important to work a lot and mobilize,” Trzaskowski replies, referring to the high turnout in Warsaw and more generally. “You must focus on what you really want to achieve and not be distracted by the media or the Twitter bubble.”

Long branded an expert in politics rather than a politician, has Trzaskowski emerged from the Warsaw mayoral race now as the real thing? “I became a politician a long, long time ago, when I found that it is impossible to be an expert in politics,” he shrugs. “Even as an MEP, I found out that you cannot be half-pregnant. If you are a politician, you have to fully be a politician.”

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