History underpins Poland’s hard line on EU-Russia pact
WARSAW: Poland's threat to veto a new EU-Russia cooperation pact may rest on a food export row, but that simmering trade dispute is underpinned by deep-seated fear and resentment of its giant neighbour and erstwhile master.
Warsaw, for four decades a member of the Soviet-dominated military pact that bore its name, objects to a Russian ban on Polish meat imports and demands a sign it will end before Friday's summit between President Vladimir Putin and EU leaders.
On a broader front, it wants to press its case before the other 24 EU member-states for security of energy supply from Russia, which provides most of its oil and gas.
Writing in the Polish mass circulation tabloid Fakt, Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski stressed how important the lifting of the Russian import ban was for Poland but also argued that history could not be forgotten.
“We have been victims of many negative Russian gestures towards Poland for a long time,” Kaczynski told the daily newspaper's largely working class audience. “Russia must accept the fact that the era of its rule over Warsaw is finished.”Poles say they have good reason to be wary of Russia in sanctioning the launch of pact talks at the summit.
Wiped off the map by successive invasions and partitions since the 18th century by its bigger neighbours east and west, Poland was ruled or dominated for long periods first by imperial, and then by Soviet, Russia.
The Poland that emerged after the fall of Communism in 1989 was fiercely independent and a guarantee of that independence was one argument in favour of joining the EU two years ago.
“There are two reasons for the Polish veto,” said Marek Migalski, political analyst at Silesia University.
“Poland is defending its economic interests. The Russian ban is really harming Polish exports and the government has every right to fight for its producers,” he said.
“But Kaczynski's policy is shaped by history. It is intended to rebuild Polish pride.”
Eugeniusz Smolar, head of the Center for International Relations in Warsaw, believes Poland hoped to resolve the issue of the Russian food ban, which covers imports into Russia of meat products and other types of food, bilaterally but turned to the EU when it made no progress with Moscow.
Russia imposed the ban a year ago after discovering forged veterinary certificates and has refused to lift it despite what Poland says is evidence that the fraud was an isolated case.
“Russia had promised several times that the issue would be resolved in a friendly manner, and sooner rather than later, but it has not been resolved and, instead, Moscow has been playing a cat and mouse game,” Smolar said.
Polish fears of discrimination by Russia have been fanned by Moscow's plans for a subsea Baltic pipeline that would supply gas directly to Germany, bypassing Polish territory.
Warsaw is worried such a pipeline could allow Moscow to cut off its gas without affecting the West and it wants Russia to ratify a charter guaranteeing energy supplies.
Russian officials, with a confidence born perhaps of growing economic power, have painted the trade row as an eccentric, and isolated, outburst by Poland that should not upset the general development of EU-Russia ties.
Polish officials suggest Russia wants to deal differently with western EU states and east European newcomers, many of whom were former satellites in the Soviet military and trading blocs.—Reuters
