I’ll explain the EU somersault over Poland
With the Ukrainian crisis, Poland has suddenly become the heroine of the European Union. Here because. Giuseppe Liturri's analysis
It was quite impressive to see the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, walk alongside the head of the Polish government Mateusz Morawiecki along the border between Poland and Ukraine on Tuesday afternoon , in the symbolic gesture of welcoming the first refugees.
It is a fact that, with the worsening of the crisis in relations between Russia and Ukraine up to the dramatic end of the war, Warsaw has become in a few days the outpost of the EU and NATO along that front.
“ From zero to hero” the Financial Times headlined yesterday, not without a certain dose of irony. Who until yesterday was the main headache of the Brussels institutions, today finds himself leading the reaction of Western democracies against Russia.
A reaction that foresees the decisive role of the Poles both in terms of logistic platform for the transfer of arms to the Ukrainian government, and in being the main destination for the flows of refugees fleeing the conflict. This crucial task was immediately rewarded with the announcement of the allocation of 500 million to Warsaw for humanitarian aid in favor of Ukrainian refugees.
The " Weimar Triangle " has even returned to the fore, a special coordination between Poland, France and Germany which had been lost and which had not met for years. Suddenly on Tuesday the three respective foreign ministers gathered in Lodz to declare their "special responsibility for maintaining peace, stability and prosperity in Europe".
And so the bitter confrontation between Warsaw and Brussels for years ended up in the background, if not in the attic, which has intensified in recent months.
At the beginning of February the news came that the EU would withhold from payments in favor of Poland, the sum of € 15 million due as a fine for the failure to close a lignite mine on the border with the Czech Republic. € 500 thousand a day that Poland refused to pay, and then the Commission took the hard way.
In addition to this fine, there is another one of € 1 million per day imposed on Poland for non-compliance with the order of the Court of Justice relating to the disciplinary chamber of the Polish Supreme Court.
But these are small change compared to the 36 billion (24 subsidies and 12 loans) related to the Polish PNRR still awaiting evaluation by the Commission, after Poland was one of the first states to present its plan in Brussels on May 3, 2021. . The two months available to the Commission have now become ten, during which there was a continuous ping pong between the Commission and the government of Morawiecki which was considered – unquestionably without any possibility of contradiction – in breach of the principles of Rule of law.
On February 16, the battle then turned to white heat. The Court of Justice has in fact rejected the appeal of Poland and Hungary asking for the annulment of an end-2020 regulation containing a general discipline for the protection of the Union's financial interests as a result of violations of the principles of the rule of law. The sanction for Member States found guilty by the Council, on a proposal from the Commission, is the suspension of all payments from the budget and all programs. A provision that is not immediately enforceable – in fact, a specific investigation has to be activated and a detailed procedure must be followed – but a serious ax on the head of those who for years have been considered by the EU institutions as a real reprobate to be looked upon with suspicion in every forum. European.
The U-turn is not just about the top of the EU. Morawiecki too has gone in a few months from total aversion to the European army to demand a substantial doubling of EU defense spending. next March 10 – when the leaders will meet for a predictably single-issue meeting – the coldness that was felt during the last meetings of the European Council will be only a pale memory. Morawiecki, Ursula Von der Leyen and Emanuel Macron will play a single score.
It is therefore necessary to clearly take note of how the EU works (not from today): there are power relationships that, from time to time, dictate the behaviors and choices that arise from it. In spite of the rules and the much vaunted principles of the rule of law and democracy. If the Member State in charge is functional to the project and to the interests of the political control group, the rules are interpreted and the money arrives; if – such as the Conte 1 government at the end of 2018 – even the mere suspicion of non-alignment hovers in Brussels, the unfortunate state is fed to the markets and put on the blacklist. A banal trade in the name of the interests and conveniences of the moment, and the Polish case is a classic and sensational example.
It is safe to bet that the 500 million direct aid to Warsaw this time will not be cut for unpaid fines, because those who until yesterday were assimilated to a "rogue" state are now suddenly identified as the custodian of princes of democracy and defender of international law. The right à la carte.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/vi-spiego-la-capriola-dellue-su-polonia/ on Sun, 06 Mar 2022 07:27:35 +0000.