By Artur CIECHANOWICZ

Join us on Telegram, Twitter, and VK.

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

“Poland’s Ukraine policy should be pragmatic, reflecting Ukraine’s attitude toward Poland.” 

At the end of August, Polish President Karol Nawrocki vetoed a bill extending the existing social benefits for Ukrainian citizens residing in Poland, arguing that public finances and “political and social emotions have changed” since the measure was introduced more than three years ago. As europeanconservative.com reported, the veto concerns, among other things, the ‘800+’ benefit, a pro-demographic program that provides families with 800 zlotys (around €180) per child each month. The fact that there is an ongoing debate in Poland about whether 800+ should be paid to unemployed Ukrainians living in our country shows how much Poles’ attitude toward their neighbours has changed, Łukasz Warzecha, a prominent political commentator, journalist and author, known for his libertarian and anti-leftist views says.

What is the debate about 800+ for Ukrainian citizens really about, and what are the main positions in this discussion? How do you assess the merits of the various arguments?

The origins of the debate are as follows: at the end of August, Polish President Karol Nawrocki vetoed a bill extending existing support for Ukrainian citizens staying in Poland, and instead proposed an alternative legislative project that guarantees healthcare and child benefits only for Ukrainians who are working and paying taxes in Poland. Ukrainian and pro-Ukrainian activists and politicians—as usual in such situations—tried to stigmatise the president’s move as pro-Russian. However, they were met with exceptionally strong public support for Karol Nawrocki, including from ordinary citizens.

How do Poles justify their support for the president’s veto?

Poland has provided Ukraine and Ukrainians with enormous assistance from the very beginning of the war. Every Pole has felt the costs of this aid. In this context, two types of reasoning underpin public support for the president’s position. The first is more emotional—it stresses the striking lack of gratitude from Ukraine and Ukrainians. The second is more pragmatic, based on the view that we simply cannot afford to sponsor those who are unemployed, and I emphasize, those who are not paying taxes in Poland. Both arguments are united by the conviction that our country has done a great deal, but received very little in return from the Ukrainian side. Kyiv has not even managed symbolic gestures of goodwill on historical issues, such as allowing exhumations of Polish victims of Ukrainian massacres that began in 1943.

Can we speak of a radical shift in Poles’ attitude toward Ukrainians?

The change was not sudden, but gradual and consistent—something I predicted from the start. In fact, I argued that the more politicians pushed us into compulsory pro-Ukrainian attitudes, the deeper the backlash would be. This change is documented by regular surveys, especially the excellent recurring studies by Dr. Robert Staniszewski of the University of Warsaw. At first—at the beginning of the war—attitudes toward Ukrainians were euphoric, but they have since steadily shifted in a more sceptical direction. Detailed survey responses showed that one of the most strongly opposed issues was precisely social benefits. Poles began to feel like second-class citizens in their own country.

Is such a perception justified?

The claim that Ukrainians are privileged in Poland has a strong basis, since all benefits—identical to those available to Poles—are granted to them solely on the basis of their entry date into Poland. Moreover, the scope of these benefits significantly exceeded what international conventions and EU regulations required from us regarding the stay of Ukrainian refugees in the EU since March 2022.

How is it that it was not Donald Tusk’s cosmopolitan government, but Mateusz Morawiecki’s (PiS) self-declared conservative government that introduced measures privileging the citizens of another country?

A characteristic Polish trait is an emotional, fairness-driven understanding of politics. As long as this applies only to ordinary citizens, the consequences are limited. Problems arise when politicians operate the same way—acting on emotions, sentiments, and resentments. An emotionally driven politician is unserious, and his actions are harmful, with very real negative effects. One of these effects was precisely privileging Ukrainians at the expense of Poles—a situation unimaginable in any serious state.

In one of your columns, you described this emotional stance of Polish politicians toward Ukraine as “Ukrainomania.” Where does it come from?

It stems from an infantile fascination with the history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, when the lands of present-day Ukraine were part of Poland. Another factor is the tendency among some Polish elites to demonize Russia. And since the enemy of my enemy is my friend, they look at this “friend” uncritically. A further element is Poland’s internal political conflict, which drives extreme positions. If one side says yes, the other must say no—or compete over who is more pro-Ukrainian, more anti-Russian, and so on. I think these three factors explain the phenomenon of ‘Ukrainomania.’ Russia is, of course, our adversary. We must accept this and respond accordingly. But any ‘-philia,’ ‘-phobia,’ or ‘-mania’ in international politics simply prevents a correct definition of the situation, and thus blocks an adequate response. This applies equally to Ukrainomania or Ukrainophilia, as to Germanophobia, Russophobia, or anti-Americanism.

Don’t Polish politicians mind the fact that Ukraine’s political and economic elites remain strikingly Soviet in mindset and far from European civilizational values? For example, in how they treat the state primarily as a private economic resource.

It doesn’t bother them, because awareness of this is very limited among the elite. Sometimes it is mentioned informally by people who have dealt with Ukrainians, more often by those involved in business there. But there is almost no critical—in the healthy sense—approach to Ukraine among Polish politicians. By contrast, in the West, this is quite obvious. This likely stems from Ukrainomania and a certain form of political correctness.

So what should Poland’s policy toward Ukraine be?

Above all, it should be pragmatic—in the best and most concrete sense of the word. Pragmatic means directly proportional—reflecting Ukraine’s attitude toward Poland. Ukraine’s stance toward Poland is very pragmatic. Ukrainians do what we allow them to do. And this is by no means a reproach against them. We can only blame ourselves. We mentioned that Poles feel disappointed by Ukrainians’ lack of gratitude. That itself is proof of a lack of pragmatism, because gratitude is not a category in international politics. States do not owe one another gratitude. If from the very beginning we insisted, as PiS did, that what we were doing for Ukraine was not transactional, then the other side did not feel obliged to reciprocate.

Moreover, anyone who spoke of a transactional approach was vilified as a “Russian stooge.” Yet there were clear situations where our interests quickly clashed. Above all, the issue of Ukrainian grain imports into the EU and Poland, as well as Ukrainian transport companies in Europe.

We should therefore set boundaries and make demands. A simple example: in the debate around the presidential veto, Nawrocki’s critics said it prevented Poland from financing Starlink systems for Ukraine. I see no reason why Poland should finance Ukraine’s satellite communications system, parts of which—it’s very easy to verify—end up on auction sites. However, if we had tied Starlink funding to concrete conditions, such as limiting Ukrainian truck traffic in the EU, that would have been pragmatic. The stance presented toward Ukraine and Ukrainians by President Karol Nawrocki may indeed be the beginning of such a change. If it were up to me, our policy toward Ukraine would be a mirror image of Ukraine’s policy toward Poland.

Do you see a chance for change in this direction?

There is very strong public support for it—polls show this. Even the current government must take it into account. The question is whether those who now say something different from two years ago are credible. The current main opposition party, PiS, has somewhat shifted its position, but it is hard to tell how much of this is sincere, and how much is opportunism or polls-driven. I also refer here to former President Andrzej Duda, whose interviews today sound as if, when commenting on Polish-Ukrainian relations, he were speaking about a different president and a different government than his own PiS government.

Original article:  europeanconservative.com