Global Europe

When the Orange revolution took place in the autumn of 2004, the EU’s role in turning it into a success benefited hugely from the fact that it had just enlarged to ten new members and that Poland, the largest newcomer, was able to act as facilitator with both sides of the divide in Ukrainian politics. Those days are now a distant memory but the legend of the Orange revolution may be stronger in Warsaw than in Kiev. Poland sees the transformation of the Eastern neighbourhood as its mission in life in foreign policy. Its basic message is that if the EU wants to become a global actor, it needs to start with the fundamentals and a stable and prosperous neighbourhood is a must for that.

The Eastern Partnership which Poland and Sweden launched in May 2008 is meant to keep the fire burning when it comes to the EU’s engagement in the East, even though the Eastern neighbours themselves, often ungulfed in petty political squabbles and economic quagmire, might not be very convenient partners. The EU itself, still suffering from the post-enlargement blues, tends to be cautious when making offers to neighbouring countries in fear that giving an inch might encourage them to claim a mile. Nevertheless, the Eastern Partnership is important for Poland because it was the first foreign policy initiative the country launched as an EU member.  

More interesting than its mostly technical official agenda is what people have on the back of their minds when thinking about it. The Eastern Partnership is meant to be a withholding operation aimed at maintaining the momentum of EU’s relations with its neighbours in expectation of better times to come with a meaningful prospect of launching the accession process. The Eastern Partnership’s objective is also to make sure that Eastern Europe is somewhere on the radar screen of the EU member states. It will not be anywhere near the top but at least it might not be forgotten altogether. Again, everything with an expectation in mind that there will come a time when organic work on the ground coupled with political change will produce a breakthrough.  

Poland has contributed to bringing a sense of realism to the EU’s relations with Russia. Sometimes the contribution bordered on the offence to the pro-Russian instincts of much of the EU political elite. In a 2007 report, Poland and Lithuania were classified as the „new cold warriors“ for their hardline views of Moscow. They both blocked the launching of the talks on the new EU-Russia agreement protesting against a food embargo, in the case of Poland, and the war in Georgia in the case of Lithuania. Gradually, the view that Russia is evolving in an ugly direction has made wider circles in the EU while Poland has realised that Russia is less relevant than it had assumed, playing a role when it comes to energy imports, being a large market but not serving as a point of reference in the political sense. Russia has been overvalued in international relations and the economic crisis is cutting it down to size, taking the pump off from its foreign policy agenda.  

In that context Poland has argued for the EU doing its homework first, especially when it comes to the energy agenda. The reference made by new energy Commissioner Oettinger in the parliamentary hearing to the need for the EU to streamline its energy dialogue with Russia, buy gas en bloc and then auction it off internally is a reflection of what Poland has for long had in mind.  

The East and Russia are not the only fundamentals that Warsaw cares about in the EU. The other one is European defence. There has been an interesting transformation from the position of an ESDP-skeptic to an ESDP-enthusiast, believing that it is the missing link in the chain of EU foreign policy and a source of enormous waste of money due to lack of specialisation and economies of scale. Hence, the 2009 Polish-French Chobielin Initiative of enhancing ESDP by means of not only the improvement of EU-NATO ties but also moving towards an EU operational headquarters, previously a no-go area from the Polish point of view. Warsaw now wants to make ESDP one of its priorities during the 2011 presidency. Poland will increasingly matter in this debate as an important contributor of troops to the EU and NATO missions and a country with a growing strategic sense of direction.  

Finally, there is commitment to democracy promotion, somewhat subdued as a result of the general trend but still important in the way Warsaw views the world. Poland therefore tends to be uneasy about the mercantalist approach to relations with China which prevails in the EU as a result of the sheer exhilirating pace of China’s rise. It is also highly critical of attempts to engage with non-democratic regimes, such as the one in Cuba, especially if such engagement takes place for short-term ends.  

The trade that Warsaw still needs to learn is global politics. Its world is too often about the Eastern neighbours, Russia, the US and one or two trouble spots out there where it is more heavily engaged. But given what Paul-Henri Spaak once has said about Europe being full of small countries, that is not just Warsaw’s challenge.