Polish president likens EU membership to past occupations
On heels of Holocaust law fallout, Andrzej Duda complains European Union membership allows ‘people in far away capitals’ to make decisions on Warsaw’s behalf
Polish President Andrzej Duda has likened Poland’s membership of the European Union to the successive occupations of the country by Russia, Austria and Prussia, press reports said Wednesday.
He said that today, as during the 123 years between 1795 and 1918 when Poles answered to an occupying power, “in far away capitals, they make decisions for us… and in reality we are working on behalf of others.”
Speaking at an event in southwestern Poland marking 100 years since the country’s sovereignty was restored following World War I, Duda said: “We have today a sovereign and independent Poland where I believe… we will live better and better. Talk about it to your children.”
To people who say the European Union is more important than Poland, Duda said “everyone should remember the 123 years of partitions” when the country answered to occupying powers.
“People would say (at the time), maybe it’s better, there won’t be any more quarrels, uprisings… we’ll finally have peace,” he said.
But they “soon realized that while the wars continued… we don’t decide for ourselves anymore, now somewhere far away, in faraway capitals they make decisions for us, they take the money we earn through our work, and in reality we work on behalf of others.”
Poland, which joined the EU in 2004, is the top beneficiary of funds from Brussels, netting some $12.4 billion a year.
Duda is a close ally of the ruling right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which came to power in 2015. Since then, relations between Warsaw and the European Union have soured, mainly over controversial justice reforms that put the courts under government control.
Critics at home and abroad believe the court reforms introduced by the PiS threaten the separation of powers, and in December the EU launched unprecedented disciplinary proceedings.
The EU’s censure could ultimately lead to Poland losing its voting rights in the bloc.
The comments came at the tail end of a diplomatic crisis between Israel and Poland over anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. The impasse began with the passing of a law in January that criminalizes blaming Poland for Nazi crimes. Several Jewish groups said the law impedes open debate and risks censoring research. Some critics of the law said it whitewashes what they called Polish complicity.
These allegations unleashed a wave of anti-Semitic hate speech online and several real-life anti-Semitic incidents, which Azari last month condemned. According to the Never Again watchdog on anti-Semitism, the volume of anti-Semitic hate speech in Poland since January exceeds that observed in the preceding decade combined.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month called “outrageous” the remark of his Polish counterpart, Mateusz Morawiecki, who said in an interview that the Holocaust had not only German, Ukrainian and Polish perpetrators, but Jewish ones, too.
The United States has also publicly condemned Poland’s legislation on discourse about the Holocaust and, according to one report, is resolved not to host Poland’s senior leadership until the crisis is resolved.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
