Poland: Towards the dark side of the force
- 8 years ago
Poland’s once shining reputation as a beacon of democracy in post-Communist Eastern Europe is in jeopardy as a rightwing government pushes an agenda at odds with EU values.
They are Poles apart – in every sense of the term.
When the president of the EU Council and former Polish prime minister from 2007 to 2014, Donald Tusk, met in Brussels this week with Poland’s conservative president, Andrzej Duda, he used a Star Wars analogy to make a salient political point.
“I want to tell you in this context that there is always time to move to the light side of the force,” Tusk teased his compatriot.
He reminded Duda that moving “to the light side” had been the pattern of Polish democracy in recent decades.
It’s a pattern that many in Europe (as well as in Poland itself) fear may soon be broken if the conservative nationalists now in power continue to ride roughshod over the rule of law.
Tusk and Duda are both Polish. But that’s where any similarities end.
Tusk is a former leader of the centrist Civic Platform that was abruptly turned out of office last October by a resurgent Law and Justice party whose last stint in power dates to nearly a decade ago.
Power behind the throne
Duda, by contrast, is the figurehead of a government whose core voters hail from rural areas in eastern Poland. Allegiance to the Catholic Church runs high, and leeriness about Europe’s motives – alongside suspicions about immigrants - runs even higher.
The real power behind the throne, the éminence grise of Polish politics, is Jaroslav Kaczynski, whose twin brother, Lech, was killed along with dozens of members of Poland’s top leadership when his plane crashed in... Go on reading on our web site.
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They are Poles apart – in every sense of the term.
When the president of the EU Council and former Polish prime minister from 2007 to 2014, Donald Tusk, met in Brussels this week with Poland’s conservative president, Andrzej Duda, he used a Star Wars analogy to make a salient political point.
“I want to tell you in this context that there is always time to move to the light side of the force,” Tusk teased his compatriot.
He reminded Duda that moving “to the light side” had been the pattern of Polish democracy in recent decades.
It’s a pattern that many in Europe (as well as in Poland itself) fear may soon be broken if the conservative nationalists now in power continue to ride roughshod over the rule of law.
Tusk and Duda are both Polish. But that’s where any similarities end.
Tusk is a former leader of the centrist Civic Platform that was abruptly turned out of office last October by a resurgent Law and Justice party whose last stint in power dates to nearly a decade ago.
Power behind the throne
Duda, by contrast, is the figurehead of a government whose core voters hail from rural areas in eastern Poland. Allegiance to the Catholic Church runs high, and leeriness about Europe’s motives – alongside suspicions about immigrants - runs even higher.
The real power behind the throne, the éminence grise of Polish politics, is Jaroslav Kaczynski, whose twin brother, Lech, was killed along with dozens of members of Poland’s top leadership when his plane crashed in... Go on reading on our web site.
Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
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