The dislike of the European Union is still a domain of a relatively small part of Polish society. ‘If we look at the trends in the support for Polish membership in the EU, rather than impulsive reactions and opinions caused by recent events, it turns out that we are once again in a period of record-high support for the Community.
– Krzysztof Blusz, the Vicepresident of WiseEuropa. Both he and Maciej Bukowski, the President of WiseEuropa, were asked to evaluate the recent years of Poland’s membership in the European Union as well as negative attitude to the idea of the EU that was observed. The full text of the interview is available on the website Newsweek.pl
Newsweek: What Poles may not like in the EU?
Krzysztof Blusz (K.B.): The criticism of the Polish presence in Europe reiterates certain constant topics. First is the argument that Poland negotiated a membership in the EU and joined due to geopolitical reasons, which meant that less attention was paid to specific solutions. As a result, a so-called institutional transfer took place, because of which we adopted pre-existing acquis of the EU. According to some, it neither fully met, nor reflected Polish needs. The second important objection is that this imitative way of accession to the EU de facto caused Poland to build its development model on external sources, instead of on its own experiences. It’s worth listening to these voices, avoiding, however, the classic mistake of presentism. Today, having the knowledge of political and economic events of the last decade, it’s easy to deem ex-post this or that past decision as beneficial or detrimental. Nevertheless, 25 years ago neither supporters nor opponents of the EU had this knowledge, as they couldn’t have had it. The criticism of our accession to the EU based on presentism might be very impressive journalistically and politically, but it lacks intellectual discipline.
Maciej Bukowski (M.B.): It does not mean that one should not analyze critically the European project and think on the actions, both internal and external, that will be most favorable for Poland and Europe. Let’s remember that our state, together with the entire Eastern Bloc, did not participate in a civilization and economic development process of the ’50s and ’60s, from which such peripheral countries as Spain, Greece, Ireland, Portugal or Italy benefited. After 45 years of communism, when we found ourselves on the threshold of transformation, we were extremely poor. We were as far away from the West, if not even further away, as the Southern European peripheries just after World War II. We wanted to quickly catch up to them and, in fact, we had no alternatives. Every country striving to make up for lost time has to imitate pre-existing solutions, copy what has already been done. It is a natural way of learning – imitate those who can do something better. For the underdeveloped countries it is a great opportunity to accelerate economic growth and Poland undoubtedly benefited from this opportunity. Today not only our economy is in a better condition, but also average Poles are twice as wealthy as in 1990. As a country, we immensely enriched ourselves, forgetting, however, how weak was our starting point and how bad was the hand we were dealt.
Newsweek: You said that Poland’s accession to the EU was largely dictated by geopolitical considerations. Did we have any alternatives?
K.B.: Let me ask this differently: what are our perspectives today in the light of experience we gathered? Intellectual and political party that rules today does not present a convincing and comprehensive vision in this respect. Because presenting such an alternative is extremely difficult.
M.B.: Economically speaking, the entry into the EU gave our economy a huge boost. It wasn’t because of the Structural Funds for the infrastructure that came with it, or aid for agricultural holdings, but first and foremost because it gave our companies access to the huge European market. And producers gained investment certainty they previously did not have. Since then, Polish industrial production has been growing at roughly 5-7 percent per year. It’s very fast. Never in our history had we such an industrialized economy like today – it is ranked approximately 25th in the world in this respect. This is due to entering the bloodstream of the European economy, from which we were excluded since the collapse of the political order in the 19th century Europe. The EU membership has allowed us, as well as Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians, to take advantage of our geographical location, i.e. our proximity to Germany – European economic center, for the first time since the 19th century. If we had been the only country from Central and Eastern Europe that failed to join the European Union in 2004, that whole flow of investment from the West, but also from Poland, would have gone to other countries in the region. Because companies would have had significantly better business environment there.
