An interesting thing is happening with Poland in Europe, and by extension, with the US. Long seen as the US’s best ally in Europe, the clear leader of "new Europe", grateful for the long fight against communism and for freedom in the cold war, and trusting US-led institutions such as NATO more than wimpy European ones like the European Union, Poland was to be America’s new privileged partner in continental Europe and a useful ally in the fight against Franco-German plots to build an independent Europe.

Well, here’s the news – thanks to America’s magisterial fuck up in Iraq (where Poland is the third largest member of the CoW), and thanks to the relentless and cash-rich grind of the Brussels bureaucratic machine, Poland is having second thoughts. Here’s how.

A recent paper by Marcin Zaborowski (a Polish scholar working in a UK university) explains the policy evolution in more detail : From America’s protégé to constructive European. Polish security policy in the twenty-first century.   Here’s the money quote, from the summary:

Following the events of 11 September 2001, Poland emerged as one of the United States’s key allies, arguably its protégé, in Central and Eastern Europe. The close affinity of interests on security matters between the United States and Poland became particularly apparent in Iraq, where Warsaw proved to be a strong and highly vocal supporter of Washington. However, at the same time, Poland has been progressively drawn into the internal workings of the EU, and as a consequence its perspectives on European security have evolved towards a more ‘EU-positive’ attitude. This, coupled with disappointment over the war in Iraq, has meant that Poland’s Atlanticism is increasingly questioned, with calls for a more pro-European attitude growing. (…) Poland’s Atlanticism is likely to be toned down in the future as Poland becomes more focused on developing its policies in an EU context and in cooperation with individual member states.

Many things have happened in the past two years, since Chirac’s memorable outburst ("they missed an opportunity to shut up"), following the Wall Street Journal inspired "Vilnius Group declaration") supporting the US stance on Iraq prior to the war, and following the acrimonious negotiations of the European Constitutional Treaty ("Nice or Death" was the Polish reallying point, in reference to the 1999 Nice Treaty giving them much larger voting rights than in the new Treaty).

Basically, Poland entered the EU in May 2004 with both France and Germany mightily pissed off against them –  and then proceeded to fight them tooth and nail on the first major European negotiation they participated to, those on the European Constitution.

What could be expected happened – France and Germany started playing hardball, pushing Poland in a corner by raising the stakes publicly in the Treaty negotiations (with the prospect for Poland of either giving up humiliatingly or being the direct cause of the failure of intensive 2-year negotiations), and linking the whole thing to the coming budget negotiations (where Poland is expected to be a large net recipient while France and Germany will be the two largest contributors), where Poland’s expected inflows were put in question.

Luckily for them, the change of government in Spain (which was until then in a quite similar position to Poland in many respects – a member of the CoW, and fighting for the Nice voting arrangements) suddenly changed the negotiation context. Spain switched abruptly to the Franco-German position, and Poland, suddenly isolated, was offered an improved deal which allowed them to save face. The Poles suddenly realized that life would not be easy for them if they had to fight the two most important EU members incessantly – and might indeed turn mighty unpleasant and lonely.

Meanwhile, the accession party took place (1 May 2004) and suddenly, the Polish farmers, amongst the most Europhobic of the country, saw their income hugely boosted thanks to Europe in two different ways (i) increasing revenue from exports to the rest of Europe at higher prices and (ii) massive subsidies under the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy), and they began to reconsider their previous opposition to Brussels.

Also, more recently, the Ukrainian crisis was an opportunity for Poland to get to value their being a full-fledged member of the EU. They essentially  took the lead in expressing the Western point of view: they cared the most, had the most vocal position, and were encouraged to speak on behalf of the EU. For the first time, they benefited from a quasi-explicit role of European Union spokesman and thus spoke for a much bigger constituency than just the “local neighbors”, i.e. 25 countries, all united behind them, the full apparatus of the European Commission (the European representatives in Ukraine ended up being the Polish president Kwasniewski, historic leader Lech Walesa and Javier Solana, the EU high representative for foreign affairs), with all the sticks and carrots – mostly carrots –  that this entails. They experienced at first hand the leverage that the EU can bring to one country’s voice, they received, on an issue of importance to them, the full solidarity of other EU members and the trust put in them to drive a EU joint position. That had a strong psychological impact for the Polish diplomatic establishment, and was much more pleasant than the clod shoulder experience of the past year.

At the same time, Iraq has gone from bad to worse, their unconditional support of the US has not brought them any returns and putting the soldiers in harm’s way in an increasingly senseless mission has not been very popular at home.

The Warsaw bureaucracy is, more than ever, fully engaged with Brussels on a daily basis – when 80% of your new laws come from over there, and you still have a massive backlog to convert into domestic law, and you have to negotiate the content of the whole thing, make sure that your administration complies with all the EU rules, procedures, etc… it’s a massive task which is impossible to fully comprehend until you are caught in the middle and it absorbs a lot of the energy of most of the government. This creates a lot of work, a lot of headaches, but it is permanent communication, permanent exchange, and the smaller entity of the two cannot be not influenced by the process and absorb the working methods, the culture of technocratic compromise and negotiation, and cannot escape a general feeling a belonging.

So Poland, taken for granted by the US ("we’re the only ones who can protect them from the Russians and from the terrorists") is slowly coming back to play its natural role in the European concert of nations – one of the bigger players, getting lots of help from the Brussels’ not insignificant common pot, getting more of the continent’s attention focused on this issues that matter to them in their corner of Europe and simply, being a fully-engaged member of the club.

Maybe it was inevitable in the long run, but boy, Georgie, you sure lost Poland quickly.