Poland's new leader sets pro-EU tone

Poland?s new prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski gave an EU-friendly speech to parliament on 19 July as deputies approved his nomination to the post by 240 votes to 205, but he fenced off social issues such as gay rights as a sovereign domain.

"The key feature of our policy is membership in the European Union. We want to be in the EU and, I stress this, to take part in everything that can lead to breaking today's EU crisis. This means finding a new [legal] foundation," he said, referring to the draft EU constitution.

On the eurozone, he added the government will stick to previous plans to cap the budget deficit at zloty 30 billion this year [€7 billion] in a "continuous" politics of fiscal discipline, but warned "we will need to use the zloty, everything indicates, for many years to come."

His words run counter to his popular reputation as a sharp eurosceptic and economic anti-liberal, with the value of the zloty falling after the sudden news, two weeks ago, that Mr Kaczynski will take the reins from his more moderate and liberal predecessor, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz.

The new leader also used soft language on Germany and Russia, after an ugly row with Berlin over a satirical story calling his twin brother and Polish president - Lech Kaczynski - a potato. Polish-Russian relations have grated over the issue of calling Russia's 1940 murder of Polish officers in Katyn "genocide." "It is not the role of prime minister to lead fights over the past," he stated. "I want my government and myself to form a group that works for the future. We leave these fights to historians for the time being," Mr Kaczynski explained, saying there is "much iniquity" but also "much togetherness" in Polish-Russian history.

He stressed that Poland needs to cut its energy dependency on Russia however, aligning himself with countries such as the UK, France, Finland and the Baltic states who see their future energy security in more nuclear power and the flexibility of the liquid -as opposed to piped - natural gas market. "Should we not already be thinking about nuclear energy?" Mr Kaczynski asked, pointing out that Poland's coal-based energy sector is falling behind the times in climate change terms. "The hysteria about nuclear energy is dying down," he indicated, adding "we want to build a [liquid] gas port terminal."

But if the prime minister's tone-setting speech could be seen as EU-friendly, it was also a careful balancing act which preserved his Law and Justice party credentials on safeguarding Polish sovereignty and Roman Catholic values, combating corruption and improving welfare. "In the EU, we have to maintain our ability to take our own decisions," he said. "We will strive for Poland to keep its sovereignty in the area of culture and customs. EU laws do not and should not cover this area. We are different in our traditions, and there is no point in hiding it, from many other countries."

The prime minister explained that Poland can learn from its EU neighbours on issues such as gender equality, but drew a red line around gay marriage. "Marriage is a union of man and woman. We will defend this. We will not let ourselves be told that black is white," he stated. Mr Kaczynski's insistent support for Ukraine's full EU membership also runs counter to mainstream political trends in Brussels, with enlargement appetite cooling in key states such as France. "[Ukraine membership] is a question of completing the EU, a question of its security," he urged.

The speech also gave glimpses of that quality of Polish prickliness that equally annoys and amuses the more well-established and laid-back members of the EU club. In stressing Poland's need to use EU aid wisely, the new Polish leader checked his rhetoric and said: "Maybe 'aid' is not such a good word. We deserve this. The course of history has run in such a way, that we really deserve this."