According to Frank Furedi, the British sociologist born in Budapest, what we are currently witnessing in the EU should apparently be described in terms of a “European culture war”. Not only is the financial stability of the integration project or its social coherence at stake, but the very essence of belief in the normative foundations of the project are starting to be questioned.
Marek Cichocki[1]
Undoubtedly, Poland and Germany are two large countries in the centre of the EU which are diverging politically at an increasing rate along the main fronts of the unleashed European culture war. At the geopolitical level, especially in the case of the policy toward Russia, Berlin and Warsaw have recently become closer than at any time within the last decades. Economically, Germany and Poland are highly interdependent and their trade exchange is booming. The real causes of growing tensions between the two countries are placed in the sphere of values and norms, European and liberal, and their diverging interpretations.
Germany is probably the country which most closely identifies with the norms and rules of the EU. Having committed unconceivable crimes during the World War II, it later recognized that a strong commitment to the Western liberal values and a devotion to the principle of the so-called Westbindung were the precondition and a historic chance for the Germans to return to the international society and the family of European nations. European integration became the main track to obtain this strategic goal. Germans have adopted masterfully the vision of open, multicultural and secularised society based on competing individualism as the model of Western, liberal modernisation mixing it with the elements of their own legal, positivist and anti-political tradition of the Rechtsstaat.
Germany is probably the country which most closely identifies with the norms and rules of the EU. Having committed unconceivable crimes during the World War II, it later recognized that a strong commitment to the Western liberal values and a devotion to the principle of the so-called Westbindung were the precondition and a historic chance for the Germans to return to the international society and the family of European nations.
With time, enhancing its place in the EU up to the current dominant position, Germany has been transforming itself from a country adopting the Western, liberal values into a country shaping, interpreting and upholding them in the name of the European project. Taking special responsibility for the EU as the normative power, Germany contributed, as any other Member State, to the evolution of the integration project from a mere community of interests to a community of norms and values. The role Berlin played in working out and establishing the Charter of European Fundamental Rights at the end of the 1990s constitutes one of the most vivid examples of this influence.
Polish perception of the normative power of the EU is certainly different from that of the Germans. Poland has joined the EU as a transition country from the Central Europe after fourteen years from the collapse of the Eastern Block, however it did not come out of nowhere in terms of values and tradition. The idea that it was solely the EU association process that made Poland democratic and the Polish society compatible with European values, widespread in some academic and political circles of the West, is patently false and misleading. Surviving Nazism and communism, two modern totalitarian systems of the 20th century, reaching its political independence and democratization in 1989 through the widespread democratic and social movement of “Solidarność”, Poland has a particular perspective on the European integration. Indeed, its normative foundations echo in current Polish politics. Rejecting the bad experience of the Cold War-era division of Europe, European cooperation and unity still seem to be the main objectives of integration for the politicians in Warsaw and for the Polish public opinion.
Polish perception of the normative power of the EU is certainly different from that of the Germans. Poland has joined the EU as a transition country from the Central Europe after fourteen years from the collapse of the Eastern Block, however it did not come out of nowhere in terms of values and tradition. The idea that it was solely the EU association process that made Poland democratic and the Polish society compatible with European values, widespread in some academic and political circles of the West, is patently false and misleading.
Hence it makes many Poles so nervous if they hear any talk of differentiated integration. However, these expectations of undifferentiated unity seem to be increasingly a paradox when paralleled more and more often with calls coming from Warsaw on respecting diversity deriving from autonomous democratic processes of different Member States. For many Poles, the unity of Europe means respecting diversity which is rooted in the principle of the self-determination of democratic nations as well as in different national identities and cultures. This strong emphasising of national and democratic differences is additionally strengthened by the Polish historical experience of the 20th century making many Poles rather sceptical of the absolute relevance of any kind of supranational structures or universal European norms and sensing a new threating possibility of tyranny and suppression of freedom. The exact same feelings towards history make so many Poles sceptical towards the EU as an efficient political and military agent in case of security challenges, they still prefer to see the American military presence in Europe as the only reliable security guarantee.
Strong emphasising of national and democratic differences is additionally strengthened by the Polish historical experience of the 20th century making many Poles rather sceptical of the absolute relevance of any kind of supranational structures or universal European norms and sensing a new threating possibility of tyranny and suppression of freedom.
German and Polish normative premises on the European integration vary and diverge, especially now in times of crises in the EU. They should be taken seriously as an object of honest inquiry and political dialogue. Otherwise they can lead to the escalation of the European culture wars and may deal a serious blow to the integration process. As we already know after the Brexit referendum of 2016, interests alone do not determine politics. Values and identities can change everything and at a surprisingly quick rate.
[1] Marek Cichocki is Professor at Collegium Civitas.
