Parliamentary elections will be held in Poland on October 15, 2023. Against the background of certain conflicts with Ukraine, the mass media began to analyze the attitude of various parties toward their neighbor. For example, the ruling party “Law and Justice” still wants to support us, but the “Confederation” is more radical.
“Undermining support for Ukraine is neither in Poland’s strategic interests nor it is in line with the beliefs of the majority of the population. Here, a different pattern is evident: nervous about losing power in the upcoming parliamentary elections, the governing PiS party is willing to use every available means to tap into groups of potential voters”, – wrote IPS.
So we decided to investigate the issue of Polish-Ukrainian relations against the background of elections in a neighboring country. We also ask experts whether it really matters for Ukraine who will win the elections.
Two main forces fighting for power
On October 15, 2023, Poland will hold parliamentary elections in which the main competitors are:
- Currently, the ruling conservative party “Law and Justice” (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość), whose leader is Deputy Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński. In their pre-election program, as a foreign policy goal, it is stated that the party wants to strengthen cooperation with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, develop cooperation with the EU countries, and increase the importance of Poland in international structures.
- The liberal “Civil Coalition” (Koalicja Obywatelska), is headed by former Prime Minister Donald Tusk. She declares that her goal in foreign policy is to strengthen Poland’s position in the European Union, as well as cooperation with the USA, Canada, and Australia.
There are also other contenders, such as the far-right Confederation, which is somewhat critical of Ukraine. Its leader is Grzegorz Braun, who has been repeatedly accused of anti-Ukrainian rhetoric.
For example, the vice-speaker of the Sejm (lower house of the parliament) of Poland, Małgorzata Gosiewska, criticized the deputy after his tirade about introducing changes to the law on the tax on certain financial institutions and the law on state finances, touching on the issue of the war in Ukraine. During the speech, the Deputy Speaker of the Seimas turned off his microphone and called the next parliamentarian.
Grzegorz Braun was the only deputy who in January 2022 did not vote in the Seimas for a resolution appealing to the EU and NATO to help Ukraine in the war with the Russian Federation and was also involved in an anti-Ukrainian rally in Warsaw in September, 2022 to which no one came.
Do the elections affect relations with Ukraine
The closer to the elections in Poland, the more actively the issue of relations between the two countries is discussed. The most pressing topic is Poland’s ban on the import of Ukrainian grain, which is currently the subject of a strong political debate. Even the Prime Minister of Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki, declared that he was against Ukrainian grain.
“Poland will not allow Ukrainian grain to overwhelm us! Regardless of what the decision of the Brussels officials will be, we will not open the borders!”, – he wrote in X (formerly Twitter).
Some believe that such a ban is related to the elections on October 15 and the desire of the ruling party “Law and Justice” to get the votes of disgruntled farmers. We asked Ukrainian political scientist, historian, journalist, director of the Institute of World Politics, and expert at iSANS – International Strategic Action Network for Security Yevhen Mahda if this is really so.
“This story has been going on since April, with Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s official visit to Poland. And here it is not true, children, that the problem definitely exists. It’s just that in pre-election conditions, there are very few political forces that can afford to ignore farmers. There is such an interesting point here that we are told that this is the position of “Law and Justice”, that is, the Polish government, but there is such a Michal Kolodzejczak on the list of “Civic Platform”. He organized pickets against Ukrainian grain when it was not yet a trend. That is, we can confidently say that there is a connection with the elections.
And we need to pay attention to that,” – he explained.
Ukraine responded by submitting three requests to the arbitration of the World Trade Organization (WTO) against Poland and two other states to hold consultations as part of the dispute settlement procedure. She also announced that she is opening an anti-discrimination investigation, based on the results of which she may take restrictive measures in response. However, this process is currently on hold.
“I think this is a bad decision. For the simple reason that this topic will exist for a long time, and it is far from a fact that we will be able to solve this issue during this time. That is, whoever thinks that we will simply submit to the WTO and quickly receive a decision from the GATT, the WTO, from the arbitration there, is simply mistaken. Therefore, this is primarily a political step. And accordingly, we should understand it, we should be aware of it. It will be difficult to roll back this step, and in the future we will still have to form our relations with the Poles,” – added Mahda.
Another subject of controversy is the problem of Ukrainian refugees. Next year, the Polish government plans to cancel social support for Ukrainians who arrived in the country after the start of the full-scale invasion of Russia on February 24, 2022.
“These decisions, which were made after the start of the war in Ukraine, are of a temporary nature… Due to the fact that these decisions will gradually lose their validity, as it is written in the law, they will not be continued”, – said the spokesman of the government of the Republic of Poland Piotr Mueller.
According to Yevhen Mahda, in reality, social support for Ukrainian refugees is not so great compared to other European countries.
“And here we can talk about the fact that many of our refugees are moving from Poland to Germany today, so there are more of our refugees in Germany than in Poland. It was so cunningly sounded that “we will gradually reduce”, that is, there is no 100% solution, and I do not think that it is all so dramatic. I think we can certainly counter this if we formulate our own position on how we should deal with refugees. We also do not have a high-quality position on this matter, that’s why it’s a problem”.
But with regard to Germany, Poland has some comments on Ukraine. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy against a close alliance with Germany.
“I understand that he now thinks that he will have a close alliance with Germany. Let me warn you that Germany will always want to come to an understanding with the Russians through the heads of Central European countries,” – said the head of the Polish government.
Yevhen Mahda explained why this topic is so important for Poland:
“This is a long-standing problem, and at the moment, I would say that “Law and Justice” makes such statements for a number of reasons. First of all, this is due to the fact that their main competitor, Donald Tusk, the leader of the Civic Platform, is a Kashub – this is an ethnic group in Poland that lives on the border with Germany. Accordingly, “Law and Justice” conducted a similar anti-German campaign against Tusk in the previous presidential elections. This is also true.
Secondly, PIS promised that it would demand an astronomical amount of reparations from Germany. And this should also be taken into account. For this party, Germany represents the EU to a certain extent. And the European Union is not an opponent of her, but an object of criticism. And when Manfred Weber, the deputy head of the largest faction of the European People’s Party in the European Parliament, criticized PIS, then Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki very quickly called him to a debate, which, by the way, never took place. That is, to me, the fact that this topic is actually very sensitive”.
He added that in this case, Germany acts as a sparring partner for “Law and Justice”, but not exactly a sparring partner, because there are still objective difficulties in their relations. And at the same time, if you look at the economic relations between Poland and Germany, it says nothing about these political frictions. That is, when the elections are held, many of these theses will no longer be heard.
We also wondered if there are other causes of conflict between states that are less obvious. He answered:
“Different interpretations of the Volyn tragedy are connected with the fact that in Poland the issue of historical memory began to be opened much earlier than in Ukraine. And they feel them much more sensitively than we do. Therefore, it is all clear and it will all continue. But, by the way, I positively and highly appreciate the joint prayer of the presidents of both countries on the eve of the anniversary of the Volyn tragedy, which in Poland is called the “Volyn Massacre”.
The Volyn tragedy* – the mutual ethnic cleansing of the conflicting Polish and Ukrainian populations, carried out by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army subordinated to the OUN and the Polish Home Army with the participation of Polish Schutzmannschaft battalions, Soviet partisans, and Ukrainian and Polish civilians in 1943 during World War II in Volyn. The purpose of the actions of Ukrainian nationalists in Volyn was, first of all, the desire to prevent the future claims of the Polish government to these lands.
*An interview with historian and researcher Alina Ponypalyak will soon appear on the pages of our magazine – ed.
He emphasized that our refugees may create certain problems, but on the other hand, those of our labor migrants who were in Poland even before the large-scale invasion, did not come to someone else’s place, they took the place of Poles who went further west. Therefore, there are various points that you can pay attention to.
According to him, we have a paradox that despite the current scandalous movements, the state, which is assessed as a crisis, our bilateral cooperation is at the highest level for the entire time of Polish-Ukrainian relations after Poland was the first to recognize the independence of Ukraine in 1991.
“We have many different contacts, but it is necessary to understand that the Polish parliamentary elections are held according to the principle that the stake is higher than life. But I think that, after all, we are not in such a situation to assume that everything will be absolutely bad for us. I will repeat that, in my opinion, our bilateral relations are at the highest level today, despite the existing crisis. The crisis happens between different countries, for example, between the USA and Israel. And their relationship today is not as cool as they would like. Despite this, they still remain strategic partners. I don’t think anyone can really deny that”.
In his opinion, it is the presence of problems that need to be solved, and how we will do it depends on both sides. Because Poland has significantly more experience in this confrontation. Poland has already passed the path of European integration, but Ukraine has not.
Dmytro Kuleba, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine predicted that “the temperature may still rise” by October 15, 2023 the day of parliamentary elections in Poland, but he assured that “Ukraine is constructive.” However, the conflict should decline in the future.
“No, it is not. I think that the conflict will end no sooner than before the new year. Because until the results of the elections are fully summarized, until we see what the next Polish government will be like, it is a little naive to hope that everything will be resolved so easily,” – Mahda reacted.
The presidents of our countries did not meet after the UN General Assembly in New York. After that, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland did not come to Kyiv for the meeting of the foreign ministries of the EU countries, and the defense concern also did not attend the forum of defense industries in the capital. We asked a political scientist whether such a diplomatic suspension could be a consequence of Zelenskyy’s speech at the UN, where he accused obvious countries of playing along with Russia.
“And it is disturbing to see how some people in Europe are playing solidarity in political theater, turning the supply of grain into a thriller… It may seem that they are playing their own role, but in fact, they are helping to prepare the stage for the Moscow actor,” – said the President of Ukraine, alluding to Poland.
After that, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called on President Volodymyr Zelenskiy “not to offend Poles”.
“I don’t know who wrote this passage into Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech, but I know for sure that the ruling party of Poland, Law and Justice, is campaigning among other things based on criticism of Russia. They cannot do it any other way because of the Smolensk tragedy in 2010, in which 9 dozen representatives of the Polish establishment died. And in particular, Lev Kaczynski, the then-president of Poland, died. Therefore, this passage caused a very predictable reaction from the Polish ruling party, and Duda canceled the meeting. He simply could not do otherwise, because, in the conditions of political competition with others, it was simply impossible not to react to such things,” – said Magda.
Possible consequences
Another topic of discussion is the winner of the election and his relation to Ukraine.
In January 2023, “New Poland” media published the following data:
- support for “Law and Justice” has fallen below 40% and increasingly does not exceed the 35% mark;
- the popularity of the “Civil Coalition” exceeded 25% and is slowly approaching 30%;
- the center-right party “Poland 2050” can count on more than 10%. It is headed by showman and publicist Shimon Holovnia.
Then there are three parties that, according to the forecasts of most polls, will also overcome the five percent electoral barrier: “Lewica”, the agrarian “Polish Peasant Party” (PSP), and the ultra-right “Confederation”.
However, according to Yevhen Magda, it is still too early to talk about the “faith” of any party for Ukraine. Currently, the attitudes of this or that political force are not fully known, although some of them are quite straightforward.
“It is fundamental for Ukraine that these elections take place in such a way that we can develop our bilateral relations again after them. After February 24, 2022, “Law and Justice” made a complete 180-degree turn and began to actively support Ukraine. It is unknown whether the hypothetical government of their opponents will support Ukraine. It is only known about the position of the Confederation that it is critical of Ukraine,” – he said.
Regarding the Confederation, in his opinion, fears are useless, because the mission of this party in the elections is to gain a foothold in the Diet.
“The Confederation cannot win the elections because it does not have that potential. The task of the Confederation in these elections is to receive a golden share – to participate in the formation of the government. They will already retain the second convocation to the Seimas, registration in the Seimas, but to say that they will win the elections is a significant exaggeration,” – he explained.
So the elections in Poland caused a lot of discussions, but the aspect of relations with Ukraine worries everyone the most. We found out that the point conflicts that currently exist between our countries are doomed to disappear after some time. Indeed, the Polish ban on the import of agricultural products and the situation with Ukrainian refugees may excite the media and the people, but the countries remain strategic partners in very good relations. The victory in the elections of “Rights and Justice” or another party will not fundamentally change the situation.
Tetiana Stelmakh
