Well, in the realm of foreign policy, it turns out, very little will change.
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The rise of PiS at the expense of the Civic Platform party suggests Poland may well transition from being Europe’s poster child to one of the EU’s most prickly member-states.
Euronews correspondent Nelson Perreira caught up with Dominika Cosic, a Polish journalist based in Brussels in order to better understand the election win for the Law and Justice Party. However, it is, in rhetorical terms at least, a broadly anti-federalist (verging on Eurosceptic) grouping committed to opposing further European integration and defending Polish sovereignty.
This is especially the case in the moral-cultural sphere where it rejects what it sees as a hegemonic European Union liberal-left consensus that undermines Poland’s traditional values and national identity.
Poland has continued to grow through the global financial crisis but, in general, workers can earn more in neighboring Germany than they can at home. “The party will more than likely have an outright majority”, stated Kazimierz Kik, a political scientist on the Jan Kochanowski University within the metropolis of Kielce. Polish voters were exhausted of the Civic Platform government – even Donald Tusk admitted during a meeting with Polish journalists that it was time for a change. Nonetheless, in spite of the turbulence in the single currency area, it remained committed to fulfilling the criteria for Eurozone accession as quickly as was realistically possible, as part of its long-term strategic goal for Poland to be at the centre of the EU’s decision-making core. It has also avoided the angry politics that have swept across many countries – until now.
Recently the party’s leaders, including President Andrzej Duda, have signaled a desire to engage constructively with Berlin.
On the other hand, Law and Justice Party understands that only fully independent Belarus and Ukraine would meet the interests of Poland’s security. Now after successive unconvincing rebrandings and plenty of their own scandals, they have slumped to the point of disappearing from Parliament.
I think that the government of Law and Justice Party is to continue developing this work. Ties became strained with the country’s European partners, particularly Germany, with Kaczynski focusing heavily on Poland’s historical grievances against Germany and Russian Federation. Lech Kaczynski was elected Polish president in the 2005 elections, but died with dozens of other top Poles in the 2010 Smolensk air disaster.
Kaczynski’s campaign preyed on fears arising from Europe’s worst migrant crisis since World War II. Numerous refugees are Muslims. Waszczykowski has said that he, like his predecessors, wants to become a key player in the European Union, not a periphery one.
“We want, probably as of January 2016, to introduce two taxes that are important for us, including a tax on banks – it will be a tax on assets with a rate of 0.39 percent – and a tax on supermarkets”, he said. They are the fresh moderate faces of Law and Justice.
It argued that the figure of around 7,000 migrants was unrealistic because family members would be able to join initial arrivals and that it was naïve to believe that this quota would not be used as a precedent to force Poland to take in additional migrants in the future. The devastating propaganda of Law and Justice describing Poland as a “ruined country” served to skilfully build upon and enhance the resentment emerging out of this dawning realisation.
More Eurosceptic in rhetoric than practice?
This is an unprecedented moment in the 25 years of Polish democracy.
But that could be undermined by Law and Justice’s lack of appetite for structural reforms, he warned.
While PiS are often described as eurosceptics, they are not likely to advocate leaving the EU.
PiS returns to energy after eight years in opposition, bolstered by a rising sense of unease in Poland over immigration and austerity overseas.
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Higher spending on social welfare “could boost GDP growth over the next few years”, wrote William Jackson, senior emerging markets economist for Capital Economics.
