Dead-Ends of Lech Kaczynski's Foreign Policy
On the 18th April the funeral of the Polish president Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria, killed in the plane crash near Smolensk, took place in Krakow. Hundreds of thousands watched the mourning ceremony, along with the heads of dozens of governments and states who came to bid farewell to the Polish leader. Dmitry Medvedev headed the Russian delegation.
Lech Kaczynski was an extremely prominent figure not only on the national, but also on the world, political stage. During his time in office he provoked controversial reactions both in Poland and beyond her borders.
In many respects his fellow citizens were at one with their president. As fervent Catholics, the majority of Poles took a hostile view of the holding of gay parades in their country and the legalization of single-sex marriage. As such, when Lech Kaczynski spoke out against such things in harsh terms, the reaction of the Polish population was sympathetic. The touching relationship between their leader and his wife was also widely admired.
There were, however, also things which displeased the great majority of the population. We only have to recall the appointment of his twin-brother Yaroslav Kaczynski to the post of prime-minister. Or the endless court case of Poland’s last communist leader, Wojciech Jaruzelski, which even the Poles themselves compare to a middle-age “witch hunt”.
On the economic front, Poland has been unable to catch up with the more developed European countries. Whilst the country cannot be expected to catch up with a country such as Germany, basic indexes reveal that she has not even been able to draw even with the Czech Republic. Millions of Polish citizens emigrated to Western Europe to earn money before Kaczynski came to power – and remained there doing so during his tenancy. It is unsurprising that the late head of state was not a favorite in the run-up to this year’s presidential elections.
A significant element of Poles’ grievances concerned Kaczynski’s very unique approach to foreign policy. Experts Sergei Markov and Aleksandr Rar share their thoughts on this, as well as the future development of Russo-Polish relations, with Pravda.ru.
Sergei Markov, member of the State Duma, political analyst:
“I must admit to being unimpressed by the results of Kaczynski’s foreign policy. He dreamed of making Poland a great nation, with about the same influence as Germany, France and Great Britain. To this end he elected to conduct a string of endless conflicts with Russia – and in the end gained nothing. Under Kaczynski, Poland, in actual fact, found itself in diplomatic isolation.
Kaczynski became famous as a euro-sceptic, coming into conflict not only with Russia, but also with the EU. He delayed the processes of integration with Europe, in general behaving in an unconventional way for modern politics. In Europe, both the president himself, and his country, began to be perceived as a capricious young woman, eternally dissatisfied with everything. Her endless attempts to profit from historical questions was met with incomprehension in Brussels, whilst in the EC dissatisfaction with Poland’s extremely anti-Russian agenda was expressed more than once.
The deceased president dreamt of turning his country into a great power. He very much wanted Poland to be responsible for the whole of the EU’s policy in the East. But these plans were frustrated. The Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, which was vehemently supported by Warsaw, came to an ignominious end. Attempts to dislodge Lukashenko, the leader of Belarus so disliked by Poles, came to nothing. They thought they could use their Slavic neighbors to the East against Russia. Nothing came of it.
What did Poland achieve through just such attempts to profit on Katyn, through the desire to site parts of the American anti-missile defense, or the support of the Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili? That the “Nord Stream” gas pipe line was laid on the bottom of the Baltic Sea in a bypass of her territory. In view of the endless Russophobe antics of the Polish leadership, Russia and countries of Western Europe needed reliable guarantees that fuel would reach consumers: another cost of president Kaczynski’s agenda.
