Regardless of its outcome, the UK referendum will affect EU politics in Central Europe. GLOBSEC Policy Institute has asked top Czech, Slovak and Polish foreign policy analysts for their views. Please see the comment of Paweł Zerka, Head of Foreign Policy Research in WiseEuropa, which is the part of the articel “A View from Central Europe: UK referendum“, published under the GLOBSEC Policy Institute project.
Last January, Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski surprised many observers in Poland and abroad when he announced that Great Britain (not Germany) would become the country’s major partner in the EU. Some of the government’s most devoted advocates presented it as evidence of its dedication to keep the UK in the EU. However, given a persistent technical tie between Brexit supporters and adversaries, the government of Law and Justice seems to have taken a rather risky bet. To be sure, its “British affair” will make sense only as long as the UK does not dare to exit – and even then only to a limited extent.
If the Brexit option prevails, Poland and the other Central European countries may find themselves in a significantly less friendly EU than the one that they had entered a decade earlier. An “equal sign” between Europe and the EU, which after the cold war almost became an axiom, will cease to apply. Most probably, the EU’s crawling disintegration will take the form of strengthened integration in narrower circles, such as among the Eurozone’s western members. Countries of Central Europe, most of whom are still outside the Eurozone, will be increasingly pushed towards the EU’s periphery, unless they accept the rules of the game preferred by the region’s unrivalled hegemon, Germany. With the UK out, and assuming France’s further repli sur soi, it will become even harder than today to provide a counterweight to German ideas for the EU, especially given the current polyphony within the V4. In such a new EU, the psychological map of the region would also change, reminding Central Europeans of their geographic proximity to Moscow.
Of course, events would transpire much differently with the Brits staying in. The UK may thus become a valuable partner for the Polish conservative government if it continues to seek a multi-speed EU of variable geometries, with a stronger role of national capitals and greater emphasis on the single market vis-à-vis the Eurozone as the major champ of European integration. However, there would be clear limits to such an alliance. Warsaw should not forget that the triangle linking it to Berlin and London will always have three sides.
