European Integration

Dossier

Spotlight on Poland

On 1 July 2011 Poland will take over the rotating presidency of the European Union. The Polish presidency comes well-prepared and with an ambitious agenda. The expectations are high as Poland is the last heavy-weight country before the “fate of the Union” is laid into the hands of moderately-sized Member States like Denmark, Cyprus and Lithuania with presidencies by crisis-ridden Ireland and Greece looming in the not so far future. It seems ironical that Europeans are looking at Poland for solutions: after all not so long ago Poland was considered the Union’s problem child. A large chunk of the Polish population remained sceptical towards the EU-membership and the Kaczyński twins came dangerously close to make the Lisbon Treaty sink like a stone. After the elections in October 2007 a sigh of relief was audible in Brussels (and very probably other European capitals). With the new government consisting of Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform and the Polish People’s Party Poland seemed to have finally whole-heartedly arrived in Europe. Four years later, Poland has established itself as a constructive player on the EU-stage and the Polish population is more pro-European Union than ever and than most of their fellow-Europeans. But with parliamentary elections coming up in October, in the middle of the EU presidency, the question is: will the Polish political landscape change again and, if so, what would that mean for Europe? What do other Europeans actually know about Poland, the biggest ex-communist country to join the EU in 2004, about its history, its problems, its achievements, its hopes and disappointments? We wish you an interesting read!

Women and Polish Democracy – Does the Quota System
Work?

The
struggle to implement mechanisms that could help increase the number of women
in the election system lasted over 10 years. When the so called quota
legislation was accepted in December 2010, guaranteeing at least 35 % of ballot
positions to women, some members of the women’s movement saw it as a success,
while others felt it was a failure. According to Professor Małgorzata Fuszara,
who presented the legislation project in the Sejm, the quota legislation can be
called the biggest success of the women's movement since their successful fight
to win women’s suffrage in 1918. At the same time Professor Fuszara admits that
it is "rather the beginning than the end of the process to end
discrimination and achieve gender equality".
The skeptics were afraid that the legal obligation to fill 35 percent of the
ballot positions with women would limit women's political activity to this
level and in the end wouldn't change much. Agnieszka
Grzybek
more...



The
Polish Military Involvement and its Effects on Public Opinion: An
Interview with Col. Piotr Łukasiewicz


Poland backed the Bush administration during the Iraq War in 2003; it has
supported the ‘War on Terrorism’ in Afghanistan, where Poland with 2600
soldiers represents one of the largest European contingents in the NATO force, but
it refused to participate in the NATO military intervention in Libya. Is this
due to the fact that public opinion in Poland is negative about the involvement
in Afghanistan? Where does the negative attitude come from and how was public
opinion in 2003? An Interview with Col. Piotr Łukasiewicz by Marianne Ebertowski
more...



Poland, Autumn 2011: the Political Situation after the
General Elections
Poland went to the polls on 9
October. The victor was the PO (the liberal
conservative Civic Platform) with 39.18% of the vote and 206 seats in the new
parliament.  The PSL (the moderate Polish
People’s Party) managed, despite fears to the contrary, to overcome the 5
percent hurdle by gaining 8.36% of the vote giving it 28 seats in the new
parliament. Together these two parties have 234 of the 460 seats and a narrow
but sufficient majority to form a government. The fact that there will be no
change in government after the election is viewed as a victory for the ruling PO and at the same time proof that the Polish political scene
has stabilised. Agnieszka Rochon more...

The Warsaw Summit of the Eastern Partnership - Arduous Steps on a Long Path
The summit of the heads of state and
government of the Member States of the Eastern Partnership and its EU partners
took place in Warsaw on 29 and 30 September 2011. The opinions on the progress
and results of the meeting differed widely. An extremely brief statement by the
Warsaw correspondent of the German state television network ARD spoke of the
undertaking as a complete fiasco, as did some of the other German media. The
official Polish side insisted that the summit had been a success; a column in
the left-liberal daily Gazeta Wyborcza emphasised the importance of
democracy and human rights issues during the meeting and pointed out the
extremely difficult circumstances under which the summit was held. Wolfgang Templin and Maxim Rust more...

The Polish Elections: Comments and Analyses
The Polish elections are over. For the first time since the collapse of communism a ruling party has succeeded in being re-elected into power. Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centre-right Civic Platform (PO)has won 39,19% of the votes, good enough for 206 seats in the Sejm and kept his major opponent, Jaryslaw Kaczynski’s Law and Justice (PiS) who won 29,88% (158 seats), at a fair distance. The real electoral surprise is the arrival of a new party, the anti-clerical Palikot’s Movement, which with 10,01% (40 seats) impressively broke through the ranks of the established political order. The other results: PO’s coalition partner Polish People’s Party (PSL) won 8,36% (28 seats), the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) 8,25% (27) – their worst result since 1989 and there is one parliamentary seat for the German minority party which is not subjected to the 5% hurdle. What do the results mean for the future of the country? What do they mean for Europe? We asked Polish researchers and activists for comments and analyses...

...A Post-Election Analysis of Palikot's Movement by Dr. Przemysław Sadura

...The Polish Elections and Beyond by Dr. Jacek Kucharczyk

...Civil Partnership Act and the Gay Community by Monika Czaplicka

...Elections and EU Presidency by Piotr Maciej Kaczyński 


The Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung in Poland: Small but Strong
June 2011 - The Regional Office Central Europe in Warsaw of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung (hbs) was opened in 2002, in the midst of the final phase of accession talks between the EU and the ten accession candidates, most of which hailed from central and eastern Europe. The office’s first tasks focused on the co-ordination of the activities for EU accession from a gender perspective. Małgorzata Kopka more...


The European Union Council Presidency and National Parliamentary Elections – Poland on the Brink of a Double Challenge
June 2011 - This year Poland will not be able to look forward to a long, relaxing summer vacation. Starting on 1 July the country will take on the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, an office which it is approaching with great ambition. So far other new Member States of the EU have failed to convince: during the Czech Presidency there was a government crisis and a major political bust-up whereas Hungary is currently in the process of dismantling its democracy. Poland has set itself ambitious goals, determined to present a different image. After a phase of isolating itself from Europe under the government and presidency of Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and subsequent cumbersome corrections to this course by Donald Tusk’s government, Poland wants its Western and Eastern neighbours to experience the country as a constructive and active partner in shaping policy. The summit of the resuscitated Polish-German-French “Weimar triangle” on 20 May in Bromberg/Bydgoszcz and the German-Russian-Polish summit in Kaliningrad immediately thereafter were supposed to provide proof of this renewed purpose. The German-Russian summit held in Kaliningrad in 2006 excluded Poland, despite its decisive influence in this region especially, awakening the old trauma of a German-Russian agreement behind Polish backs. Wolfgang Templin more...

What Makes a Citizen? The Right to Culture

“Civil society” is a term that has been eagerly used and abused, ever since the Polish political transformation of 1989 took place. Within the confines of a conservative-liberal fantasy, private foundations and church groups were supposed to take over many functions previously taken care of by the “welfare state” (albeit one defined in a particular, “real-socialist” manner). And thus, it was thought best to replace the actual welfare with the eagerly touted “charity” and hand over the schools to various non-governmental organisations. Even though this fantasy was ultimately never realised, it was still successfully promoted as a model of sorts: an ideal everyone should aspire to. Witold Mrozek more...


The Polish Green Party and the Upcoming Elections
The Greens appeared on the Polish political scene in 2003, when disappointment about the left-wing government started to grow amongst Poles. Ecologists, feminists and members of the LGBT community decided to cooperate within a common political movement, which emerged from one of the initiatives supporting the „Yes“ in the referendum for EU accession. An interview with Bartłomiej Kozek by Marianne Ebertowski. more...


Citizens Take Culture into Their Own Hands
The Citizens of Culture (Obywatele Kultury) are a movement that arose spontaneously from a civic revolt wanting to protect the constitutional right to have access to culture. A petition adressed to the Prime Minister that was initially signed by a few hundred of the most noted Polish professors, artists, composers and writers gathered over 100,000 signatures. This May, just a year and a half after creating the petition, Prime Minister Tusk signed the Cultural Treaty (Pakt dla Kultury). It was the first time in Polish history that a Prime Minister signed a pact with a grassroots movement. Agnieszka Grzybek talks with Beata Chmiel, leader of the Citizens of Culture. more... 


Let’s Play Fortune-Teller: Civil Partnership in Poland
On 17th May  2011 the SLD (Polish Social-Democratic Party) announced  that it had prepared a civil partnership act. This is important to know because to date there are almost no legal regulations concerning gay people in Poland. The only act containing the words ‘sexual orientation’ is a law from 2004 prohibiting discrimination at the workplace. This law owes its existence to several circumstances. Firstly, it is due to the fact that Poland joined the EU and had to comply with the acquis communautaire. Secondly, at that time there was a first attempt to pass a Civil Partnership Act in Poland – Senator Maria Szyszkowska wrote a statute which passed the Senate and had a possibility to pass the Sejm (the Lower Chamber of the Parliament) as well. It didn’t because Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, then Marshall of the Sejm, didn’t put it to the vote. Before that, in the year 2000, the SLD tried to get a Cohabitation Act ratified – it didn’t become a law as a result of social discord. The act proposed this year is the third attempt to vote for a Civil Partnership. Article by Monika Czaplicka. more...

A preview and an evaluation of the Polish EU presidency written by Agnieszka Łada  and Jacek Kucharczyk (Institute of Public Affairs, Warsaw) can be found in our DOSSIER Hungarian and Polish Presidencies of the European Union . The Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union thanks the Institute of Public Affairs for providing us with the following links:

o Agnieszka Łada, Towards a stronger role for civil society in the Eastern Partnership, European Policy Centre, July 2011
http://www.isp.org.pl/site.php?id=1&pub=486&lang=2

o Elżbieta Kaca, Jacek Kucharczyk, Agnieszka Łada, Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum & how to improve it, Institute of Public Affairs, Warsaw 2011 http://www.isp.org.pl/site.php?id=1&pub=471&lang=2

o Gabriela Svárovská, Jacek Kucharczyk, Strengthening EU Democracy Support as a Task for the Polish Presidency – lessons learnt and challenges ahead, Institute of Public Affairs, Warsaw 2011 http://www.isp.org.pl/publikacje,25,471.html

o Jacek Kucharczyk, Agnieszka Łada, Filip Pazderski, “European Partnership for Volunteering” – an opportunity for the Polish EU - Conuncil Presidency? Analyses & Opinions No. 17/121 June 2011 http://www.isp.org.pl/uploads/analyses/1164308839.pdf

o Joanna Fomina, Justyna Frelak The Perception of Poland and Poles in Great Britain, Institute of Puiblic Affairs, Warsaw 2011 http://www.isp.org.pl/publikacje,1,473.html