Politics

Poland could be Britain's best ally

The appointment of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to the Presidency of the European Council is an unmissable opportunity

September 08, 2014
Tusk speaks at Poland's 25th anniversary of freedom. © Mateusz Włodarczyk
Tusk speaks at Poland's 25th anniversary of freedom. © Mateusz Włodarczyk

“Poland to the rescue again!” remarked my neighbour here in Warsaw, only half joking, in response the appointment of the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk as the new President of the European Council. Poland, after all, is a country which once styled itself the Christ of nations—partitioned and abandoned, but always ready to rise up and save the continent. Poles saw off the Turks at Vienna and led the fight against Communism. So is Donald Tusk now come to save Europe?

Those who fear a Tusk Presidency will be driven by grand geopolitical visions of the European Union can breathe easy. Happily, that is not how the Polish Prime Minister will perform his role chairing EU summits for the next two-and-a -half years. It’s simply not in the nature of the post. The Germans, European champions at Institutionstechnik, have shoehorned Tusk into just the right position to mark his country’s coming of age in the EU.

For years Warsaw has annoyed Berlin by demanding it be listened to on European issues but failing to come up with original ideas. If you asked Polish diplomats about, say, their plans for the development of the Eurozone, they would reply “well, Germany wants this, and France wants that, so we’ll side with X.” Poland’s only skill was in living by other people’s rules.

That has now changed. Poland has completed its integration into the EU institutions just as the EU runs out of answers. Tusk has recently had to propose genuinely new ideas on EU energy, defence and foreign policy. But in this deal-brokering job, it is his old skill at accommodating other national positions that is being rewarded. His will be consensual leadership.

Still, his geopolitical compass may trouble Britain. The UK views the EU in geopolitical terms too, of course. But it comes at it from the opposite direction: while Poland sees the EU as a tool to bring choice to its unhappy history and geography, Britain views it as the reverse—an unwanted encumbrance on its political development and its outward-looking geography.

Or put another way: for Poland, the EU is a regional political system well-suited to managing its own intensely regional geography. European integration transforms old tensions over population size and resources into common goods. Britain simply doesn’t want to be transformed in this way. Such differences may cause problems. Take the Atlanticist sympathies that are supposed to unite Poland and Britain. Both countries will push for a US-EU trade deal during Tusk’s term. For the UK, however, this is about liberating itself from European markets; for Poland it’s about strengthening Europe by permanently anchoring the US in its affairs.

Likewise their shared desire to reform EU labour migration. Poland believes free movement can still achieve its purpose of reducing tensions over population size but only if strong European institutions prevent other members exploiting its current population decline (its loss is your gain). The UK believes that these institutions are the problem since they preclude it from closing its borders.

Nevertheless, engagement with Tusk will be the best means for Britain to liberate itself from the pull of regional integration. Only Tusk can secure smooth relations between governments and prevent the aloof European Court and Commission having to regulate conflicts between eurozone and non-eurozone states.

British engagement with Tusk could also strengthen the EU’s transformative effects in Eastern Europe where mutual weakness is leading to antagonism with Russia. And it would prove that Western institutions can integrate emerging powers.

London may even find that Warsaw shares its basic view on international affairs. Brussels and Berlin like to claim that EU-style regionalism is the new global format, the emergent organising principle in Africa, America, Asia. European integration should thus be pursued as an end in itself. Warsaw, by contrast, may share the British notion that politics is local and opportunities global.

For Poland, regional problems are a distraction from its exploration of global markets and its domestic political development. In this regard the EU is a means to an end—a way to settle regional tensions so it can get on with other business. If Warsaw is currently more committed to the EU than London is, that may simply be because Poland is more deeply embroiled in these regional tensions.