20 years of EU eastern expansion: Poland wants more

Poland is back on the European stage, explains Prime Minister Tusk. However, in the speeches on the anniversary of joining the EU, it becomes clear that the country not only wants to be there again, but also wants to change the EU.

Aleksander Kwaśniewski is once again a man in demand. 20 years after Poland became an EU member with him as President, Kwaśniewski is regularly asked to give his conclusion. The acceptance was not a given, he said a few days ago; after all, people weren’t necessarily waiting for Poland further west. But it was one of three important prerequisites for a modern Poland after 1989. A new constitution was needed for democracy, NATO for security, “and to give us a chance for development and success, we needed the European Union. And that’s how it happened.”

The country has doubled its economic output since joining, international companies are investing and Poles live and work across Europe. The approval ratings for EU membership are consistently high, even if they have recently fallen to 77 percent due to the farmers’ protests against the so-called “Green Deal”. However, a Polexit based on the British model is not up for debate.

Poland wants to be a leading force

Poland has become Europe, says Prime Minister Donald Tusk: “I’m talking about fundamental values, about freedom, dignity and the rule of law – that is Europe and Poland has become the heart of Europe.” His generation could only dream of traveling west. Today since the West in Poland.

Sounds like a finale, he says, but it’s not. Because we have to take care of this Europe. And since the national conservative PiS was voted out in October after eight years of constant dispute with the EU, Tusk has regularly repeated: Poland is back on the European stage.

The fact that Poland wants more today than it did 20 years ago – no longer just to sit at the table, but to have a say – was made clear by Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski a few days before the anniversary in a keynote speech in parliament, the Sejm. The EU must become a “geopolitical actor on a par with the other major international powers”. And: “Poland and the Poles” deserve to play a leading role.

Give the EU new rules

Since the change of government, Warsaw has revived the Weimar Triangle, a discussion format with Germany and France. It calls for a common European security policy and rearmament, especially in view of the Russian war in neighboring Ukraine.

But the EU should also change politically, demands Sikorski in the Sejm. Nobody should have a monopoly on being right, especially if the alliance is to continue to grow: “The task is therefore to create a fairer voting system that gives all countries influence on the Union’s actions both before and after enlargement.”

Poland joined the Union at the time of the Treaty of Nice. The subsequent Lisbon Treaty had shifted votes in favor of larger countries such as Germany and France – against Polish protests. Perhaps, Sikorski at least suggests, the EU now needs a new treaty that distributes the voting weight differently, but also makes the EU more capable of acting through less pressure on unanimity.

At the Munich Security Conference in February, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke out in favor of appointing an EU Commissioner for Defense. Sikorski is said to have ambitions for the post.

Ex-President Kwaśniewski says that Poland should no longer just watch from the side and complain. After all, this isn’t the Muppet Show, where a few old people can badmouth everything from the box.