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Tag: Mateusz Morawiecki

  • What happens next in Poland? 5 things you need to know after a landmark election

    What happens next in Poland? 5 things you need to know after a landmark election

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    WARSAW — After eight years of rule by the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, Polish voters on Sunday chose change — giving three opposition democratic parties enough seats to form a new government.

    So now is the way clear to bring Poland back into the European mainstream after dallying as an illiberal democracy?

    Not so fast.

    The country’s likely ruling coalition faces years of very hard political graft to undo the changes wrought by PiS since 2015.

    Here are five main takeaways from an election that will shake Poland and Europe.

    1. Job No. 1 — creating a new government

    The final result puts PiS in first place, with 35.4 percent, according to a preliminary vote count, and 194 seats, but that’s too few for a majority in the 460-member lower house of parliament.

    “We will definitely try to build a parliamentary majority,” said Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

    The first move belongs to President Andrzej Duda, a former PiS member who has always been loyal to the party. He has said that presidents traditionally choose the leader of the largest party to try to form a government, but if PiS really is a no-hoper, Duda could delay the formation of a stable government.

    Under the Polish constitution, the president has to call a new parliamentary session within 30 days of the election. He then has 14 days to nominate a candidate for prime minister; once named, the nominee has 14 days to win a vote of confidence in parliament.

    If that fails, parliament then chooses a nominee for PM.

    That means if Duda sticks with PiS, it could be mid-December before the three opposition parties — Civic Coalition, the Third Way and the Left — get a chance to form a government. Together, they have 248 seats in the new legislature.

    There are already voices calling on the opposition to short-circuit that by striking a coalition deal with the signatures of at least 231 MPs, demonstrating to Duda that they have a lock on forming a government.

    Once in power, the opposition will find that ruling isn’t easy.

    What unites the three is their distaste for PiS, but their programs differ markedly.

    Civic Coalition, the largest party under the leadership of Donald Tusk, a former prime minister and European Council president, is part of the center-right European People’s Party in the European Parliament. But it also contains smaller parties from different groupings like the Greens.

    The Third Way is a coalition of two parties — Poland 2050, founded by TV host Szymon Hołownia, and the Polish People’s Party (PSL), the country’s oldest political force representing the peasantry. Poland 2050 is part of Renew while PSL is in the EPP. The grouping skews center right, which means it’s likely to clash with the Left on issues like loosening draconian abortion laws.

    The Left is in turn an amalgamation of three small groupings whose leaders have often been at daggers drawn.

    2. There’s a mighty purge coming

    A non-PiS government will have a very difficult time passing legislation as it will not have the three-fifths of parliamentary votes needed to override Duda’s veto; his term ends in 2025.

    The new administration’s first job will be cleaning PiS appointees out of controling positions in government, the media and state-controlled corporations. Poland has a long tradition of governments rewarding loyalists with cushy jobs, but PiS took it to an extreme not seen since communist times.

    Most of those people face dismissal.

    “We will fire all members of supervisory boards and boards of directors. We will conduct new recruitment in transparent competitions, in which competence, not family and party connections, will be decisive,” says the Civic Coalition electoral program.

    “We’ll end the rule of the fat cats in state companies,” says the Left’s program.

    The immediate market reaction was positive, with energy company Orlen up more than 8 percent on the Warsaw Stock Exchange on Monday, and the biggest bank, PKO BP, up over 11 percent.

    Poland’s state media became PiS’s propaganda arm — along with a chain of newspapers bought by state-controlled refiner Orlen — hammering Tusk as the traitorous “Herr Tusk” more loyal to Germany than Poland. Not a lot of people in the media are likely to survive what’s coming, if the new government succeeds in its goal of shutting down the National Media Council — a body stuffed with PiS loyalists that manages public media.

    Poland’s state media became PiS’s propaganda arm, hammering Tusk as the traitorous “Herr Tusk” more loyal to Germany than Poland | Zbignieuw Meissner/EFE via EPA

    But losing a job isn’t the worst of what’s awaiting many.

    3. Go directly to jail

    When Tusk’s party last won power from a short-lived PiS government in 2007, the winners treated their political rivals with kid gloves and hardly anyone was prosecuted. This time the gloves are off.

    In its political program, Civic Coalition promises to prosecute anyone for “breaking the constitution and rule of law.”

    It aims at Duda, Morawiecki, PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński and Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, Central Bank Governor Adam Glapiński for mismanaging the fight against inflation, and Orlen CEO Daniel Obajtek for heading a controversial buyout that saw the sale of part of a large refinery to foreign interests.

    Expect prosecutors to track down the numerous scandals that have hit PiS over the years — from the government of former Prime Minister Beata Szydło refusing to publish verdicts issued by the Constitutional Tribunal, to Duda refusing to swear in properly elected judges to the tribunal.

    There are also dodgy contracts issued during the panicky early phase of the COVID pandemic, millions spent on a 2020 election by mail that had not been approved by parliament, state companies setting up funds that poured money into PiS-backed projects, a bribes-for-visas scandal, and many more.

    Many people with corporate jobs kicked back part of their salaries to PiS. Additionally, state-controlled companies directed a torrent of advertising money to often niche pro-government newspapers while neglecting larger independent media.

    All of those transactions are likely to be examined and — if found to be against the interests of the corporation and its shareholders — could result in criminal charges.

    The coalition promises to “hold responsible” people “guilty of civil service crimes.”

    4. Reaching out to Brussels

    Tusk is a Brussels animal — he spent five years there as European Council president and was also chief of the European People’s party.

    PiS’s departure marks a sea change with the EU — which spent eight years tangling with Warsaw over radical changes to the judicial system aimed at bringing judges under tighter political control.

    The European Commission moved to end Poland’s voting rights as an EU member under a so-called Article 7 procedure, blocked the payout of €36 billion in loans and grants from the bloc’s pandemic recovery fund, sued Poland at the Court of Justice of the EU, while the European Parliament passed resolutions decrying Warsaw’s backsliding on democratic principles.

    The European Commission moved to end Poland’s voting rights as an EU member under a so-called Article 7 procedure | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images

    “The day after the election, I will go and unblock the money,” Tusk vowed before the vote.

    Although Tusk said all that’s required is “a little goodwill and competence,” it’s going to be tougher than he’s letting on. The PiS government tried to unlock the money by passing a partial rollback of its judicial reforms, but they’re stuck in the PiS-controlled Constitutional Tribunal. Passing any new law will require Duda’s signature and without that, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen doesn’t have the legal basis to acknowledge that Poland has met the milestones it needs to achieve to get the money.

    “Perhaps the strategy of Tusk will be to try to reopen the negotiation on the milestones and kind of striking a new deal with the European Commission,” said Jakub Jaraczewski, a research coordinator for Democracy Reporting International, a Berlin-based NGO.

    5. Making waves in Europe

    PiS made a lot of enemies — and the new government will try to undo that damage.

    Relations with Berlin have been foul, with Kaczyński pounding the German government for wanting to undermine Polish independence and accusing Berlin of aiming to strike a deal with Moscow “because it is in their economic interest as well as that of their national character: the pursuit of domination at any cost.” Kaczyński and other PiS politicians have also constantly harried Germany for not coming clean about wartime atrocities against Poland.

    Tusk has been careful not to touch that issue for fear of harming his party’s electoral chances, but he’s historically had good relations with Berlin — although Poland, no matter under which government, is a big and often prickly country that’s not an easy partner.

    Tusk blamed PiS for the downturn in relations with Ukraine after the Polish government restricted Ukrainian grain imports not to annoy Polish farmers and to say it would not send more weapons to Kyiv. Tusk called it “stabbing a political knife in Ukraine’s back, while the battles on the frontline are being decided.”

    While Brussels, Berlin and Kyiv will be breathing a sigh of relief at the change of direction in Warsaw, things are likely to be a little more tense in Budapest. Poland and Hungary had a mutual defense pact, blocking the needed unanimity in the European Council to move on the Article 7 procedure.

    Without Kaczyński to protect him, Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán is much more exposed. There are other populists in Europe, like Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Robert Fico, who looks likely to take over in Slovakia, but they don’t face Article 7 procedures and their countries have tight relations with the EU — making it difficult to see why they’d risk that to go out on a limb to save Orbán.

    Paola Tamma contributed reporting.

    This article has been updated with the final election results.

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    Jan Cienski

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  • Poland’s election: Big hopes but no quick fixes

    Poland’s election: Big hopes but no quick fixes

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    WARSAW — The campaign language ahead of this year’s Polish general election is apocalyptic — painting it as an existential battle for the soul of the EU’s fifth most populous country — but the likeliest outcome is a chaotic stalemate.

    If the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) hangs on to power for a third term there isn’t much more it can do to wreck Poland without quitting the EU — and there’s little prospect of that. If the opposition pulls off a stunner and wins it will be so hemmed in by PiS-controlled courts and institutions and by a hostile president that it won’t be able to do much more than tweak the optics rather than surgically remove the growths added by Law and Justice.

    Internationally, Poland is too important to be kept in the deep freeze forever; with a fast-growing economy, a big military and a key role in supplying Ukraine, it is no Slovakia. A PiS win will mean greater efforts to find some accommodation with Warsaw; an opposition victory will dramatically improve the atmosphere, but there are limits to even an opposition-ruled Poland’s coziness on many issues that are key to the EU.

    An opposition victory could weaken PiS’s institutional advantages that it’s been using to skew the playing field in its favor — potentially leading to a longer-term shift away from the right-wing party that’s dominated Polish politics for the past eight years. But it’s no quick fix.

    None of this is stopping both sides from claiming that the October 15 vote is the most important in decades.

    According to PiS, opposition leader Donald Tusk is a disloyal Pole who is working on behalf of both Germany and Russia to turn the country into a puppet state by letting in hundreds of thousands of migrants.

    Oh, and he also wants to raise the retirement age.

    Jarosław Kaczyński, the PiS chief and Poland’s real ruler, thundered to his supporters on Sunday: “Donald Tusk had to agree to make Poland subservient to Germany and therefore to Russia.”

    “Stop Tusk. Only PiS can ensure Poland’s security,” trumpets an election ad.

    For the opposition, led by Tusk’s Civic Coalition, another four-year term with Law and Justice at the helm means real danger for the future of Poland as a democratic country, as well as undermining the rights of women thanks to a draconian abortion law and an LGBTQ+ minority subjected to attacks by ruling party officials.

    “Law and Justice is poison,” Tusk said at a campaign rally this summer. “Every day, every month they are in power is a growing threat to our security.”

    Those fighting words are designed to budge the electorate; POLITICO’s Poll of Polls shows PiS at 37 percent while Civic Coalition is at 30 percent — meaning any new government is going to require cobbling together a coalition with smaller parties.

    Polish Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Law and Justice (PiS) ruling party Jarosław Kaczyński has promised that if his party wins, he’ll continue the judicial system changes that have so distressed the EU | Marian Zubrzycki/EPA-EFE

    It’s not all rhetorical spin.

    “There is always a tendency to say this is the most important election since 1989 [the election that ended communist rule], but this time there is a somewhat stronger case for making that argument. The level of polarization is evidence for that,” said Aleks Szczerbiak, a professor of politics at the University of Sussex in the U.K.

    High stakes

    The outcome is going to be watched very closely, from Brussels to Kyiv.

    For the European Union, the hope is that if PiS is ousted Poland will return to the ways of Tusk, who served as Polish prime minister during a remarkable era of comity with the EU and with Germany before going on to become president of the European Council. As an added sweetener, Brussels will likely quickly move to release €36 billion in loans and grants from the bloc’s pandemic recovery fund held up over worries that PiS’s court system reforms undermine judicial independence.

    The EU court cases, parliamentary resolutions, infringement procedures and Article 7 effort to strip Poland of its voting rights would also likely be shelved.

    The German government would also sigh with relief at seeing the back of a government that has fiercely needled Berlin at every occasion and also called for up to $1.3 trillion in compensation for the destruction caused by the Nazi occupation; although the opposition hasn’t cut itself off from that demand. 

    Poland has been one of Ukraine’s fiercest advocates during the war — sending tanks and jet fighters ahead of most other countries, offering diplomatic support, receiving millions of refugees who fled the early days of the war, and serving as the main transshipment point for weapons and other aid heading east.

    But the election campaign has soured that relationship.

    Warsaw led the charge in blocking Ukrainian grain exports, worried it would undercut Polish prices and harm farmers — a key voting bloc. When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dared to criticize Poland at the U.N., a furious President Andrzej Duda compared Ukraine to a drowning man who poses a danger to his rescuers.

    “We say to the Ukrainian authorities — do not do what goes against the interests of Polish farmers,” lectured Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who said last month that Poland would stop sending weapons to Ukraine while it rebuilt its own stocks.

    Poland’s Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau skipped this week’s summit in Kyiv. Getting relations back on an even keel will take “a titanic effort,” he said.

    Tusk promised a reset: “We cannot allow good Polish-Ukrainian relations to depend on the negligence and chaos created by the Polish government.”

    Polish opposition leader and former premier, Donald Tusk addresses participants of a rally in Warsaw on October 1, 2023 | Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images

    A PiS victory will send shock waves across Europe.

    Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán, Kaczyński’s closest ally, has been building his illiberal democracy for over a decade. With Rome governed by right-winger Giorgia Meloni, Slovakian populist Robert Fico scoring a victory in last week’s election, and the far-right Alternative for Germany party rising fast in the polls, the signal is that the right is gaining strength across the Continent.

    That’s likely to further erode the tenuous hold on power of centrist parties in the European Parliament in next year’s election.

    It will also block any chance of agreeing on a migration pact to tackle the thousands of people crossing EU borders and kill any effort to reform EU institutions ahead of an expansion to Balkan countries and Ukraine.

    “A PiS government will block reforms on issues like taxation and foreign policy that threaten the national veto right. There is also a different approach to migration,” warned a senior Polish government official who spoke on condition of being granted anonymity. “We have another model of the European Union.”

    Reality bites

    However, despite the rhetoric, the reality is that the election is unlikely to mean a radical worsening of relations between Warsaw and Brussels.

    Kaczyński has promised that if his party wins he’ll continue the judicial system changes that have so distressed the EU, after admitting that the reforms made so far haven’t worked. He vowed: “This time it will succeed.”

    But his party has already sent out peace feelers to Brussels, trying and so far failing to backtrack on some changes to top courts to get the Commission to release the blocked funds.

    If Law and Justice wins a third term, EU institutions will have to decide whether they want to continue the confrontation, or else make peace with a Poland that has firmly chosen a populist course.

    “It takes two to tango. Maybe there will be a will to compromise on both sides,” said the Polish government official.

    Permanent ostracism is also untenable, as Hungary showed this week by playing a skillful game of getting the EU to release blocked funds to avoid Orbán vetoing aid for Ukraine.

    Despite opposition charges that PiS wants to pull Poland out of the EU in a Polexit — a cry from parts of the far right — Law and Justice says it has no intention of following the U.K. out of the bloc.

    The results of the Polish general election could influence the upcoming European Parliament election and Poland’s presidential election in 2025 | Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images

    “PiS’s direction has always been toward the EU,” said PiS MP Radosław Fogiel.

    And an opposition-led Poland would also be no easy partner for Brussels. After the initial flush of warmth, perennial problems will return like Poland’s continued addiction to coal-fired power, its reluctance to join the euro, and a suspicion of large flows of migrants — also voiced by Tusk during the campaign.

    “Even if there is a change of government, there will still be very strong public opposition to a change in migration policy,” said Jacek Czaputowicz, a former foreign minister under the PiS government, speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum.

    Poland’s large and powerful farming sector will be a huge issue for Ukrainian grain exports and for future efforts to recalibrate the EU to accommodate new and poorer members.

    Ukrainian politicians hope that the war of words with Warsaw will die down after the election.

    “War is exhausting for Ukraine and for Poland too, so emotions are felt on both sides, in addition, the election campaign in Poland, that tends to politicize everything, even economic issues,” said Andriy Deshchytsia, former Ukrainian ambassador to Poland, adding: “However, the Russian threat is still here, just like a year ago … so we don’t have any other choice but to sit and search for a compromise.”

    As bad as it gets

    At home, the election is also unlikely to have the earth-shattering impact that’s being voiced during the campaign.

    PiS has done a lot of damage over the last eight years, and it’s difficult to see how much more it can do while still remaining a member of the EU. The state media is a Euro-lite version of North Korea, state-controlled corporations are stuffed with party hacks, the highest courts are firmly under political control, much of the Roman Catholic Church functions as a PiS acolyte, the police don’t mind clubbing the occasional opposition protester, the prosecutor’s office has become a political plaything — dropping investigations of the well-connected while fiercely pursuing the regime’s opponents.

    But expanding that control will be difficult in an economy that has a large and vibrant private sector, a strong civil society and hefty private media.

    Non-government media operators are owned by foreign companies that have shown no sign of backing out of the Polish market; an earlier effort to tangle with American-owned TVN, the country’s largest private television network, was quickly slapped down by Washington.

    The EU is also working on a rulebook that aims to secure media independence against political pressure and foster pluralism; Commission Vice President Věra Jourová warned it “will be a major warning signal for member states.”

    An opposition win would dramatically change the optics with Brussels, and a new government would scrap further legal changes to courts. But any effort to roll back those reforms, and any other PiS legislation, will run into a significant hurdle: President Duda.

    There is a chance that Poland’s President Andrzej Duda will cooperate, as Tusk has threatened to prosecute him for violating the constitution | Leon Neal/Getty Images

    There is no poll predicting an opposition win so gigantic that it would gain a two-thirds majority of MPs needed to overturn presidential vetoes. The country’s top courts are filled with judges appointed by the current government, meaning legislation will also be caught up in endless litigation.

    “Even if they win an outright majority, which doesn’t look likely at the moment, this is an internally divided opposition and they face a president who will be able to veto their legislation,” said Szczerbiak.

    However, there is a chance that Duda will cooperate, as Tusk has threatened to prosecute him for violating the constitution.

    “Duda is a dealmaker,” said Wawrzyniec Smoczyński, a political analyst and president of the New Community Foundation. “Tusk is a big risk for him and the way to lessen that is to strike a deal.”

    If Duda doesn’t play ball, a non-PiS government could be limited to purging state companies, the government and the media of PiS loyalists.

    “Overnight you will get the public media back. Everyone will be booted out of there,” Tusk pledged.

    Those small steps are unlikely to satisfy opposition backers yearning for revenge against Law and Justice and a clean break with the last eight years.

    “For Poland, it’s all fucked up,” said Paweł Piechowiak, taking part in last week’s massive opposition march in Warsaw while waving huge Polish and EU flags, his cheeks painted in rainbow colors. “You can’t wreck this country any more than it is.”

    But those personnel changes may have longer term consequences by switching public media away from backing PiS, which could undercut that party’s base of support in rural and small-town Poland.

    That could change the political dynamic, especially if the next government is short-lived and there is an early election; it could also influence the upcoming European Parliament election and Poland’s presidential election in 2025.

    “The parliamentary election could be viewed as the first round of a longer campaign,” said Szczerbiak.

    Veronika Melkozerova contributed reporting from Kyiv.

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    Jan Cienski

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  • Huge but glum: Poland’s opposition puts a million people on the streets

    Huge but glum: Poland’s opposition puts a million people on the streets

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    WARSAW — Poland’s opposition held an enormous rally in Warsaw and other cities on Sunday — claiming more than a million people took part — but the mood two weeks ahead of the election is grim rather than triumphant.

    That’s because the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has been holding on to a significant lead in the polls. POLITICO’s Poll of Polls has PiS at 38 percent while Civic Coalition, the main opposition grouping, is at 30 percent.

    The Million Hearts march called by Donald Tusk, a former prime minister who heads the Civic Coalition, was supposed to lift the spirits of opposition supporters and show them that PiS — in power since 2015 — can be beaten.

    “The impossible has become possible, when I see this sea of hearts, when I see these hundreds of thousands of smiling faces, I feel that this turning point in the history of our homeland is approaching,” Tusk told the crowd in Warsaw.

    But the mood among the thousands of people streaming through the heart of the Polish capital — many waving red-and-white Polish or deep-blue EU flags — was more sober.

    “I’ve had it up to my ears with the government of these awful people who are destroying my country,” said Kalina de Nisau, wearing a wrap made out of knotted EU and Polish flags. “But I’m not certain that this march will change the outcome. It’s very difficult.”

    While Tusk and other party leaders were exhorting the huge crowd in Warsaw, PiS leaders were in Poland’s coal mining capital of Katowice to warn darkly of the dangers awaiting Poland if Tusk and his allies win on October 15.

    Merkel and migrants

    “If we succeed in beating [Civic Coalition] we’ll chase away Tusk. Where? To Berlin,” announced Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, hitting on a popular PiS theme that Tusk is in cahoots with Germany to cripple Poland. He then called Tusk the “political husband” of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

    He also accused Tusk of trying to organize a wave of illegal migrants into the EU, waving a sheaf of documents he said spelled out the scheme “in black and white.” PiS is trying to deflect the blowback from a growing bribes-for-visas scandal where Polish consulates are accused of issuing work visas for cash, and also of issuing huge numbers of visas to non-EU citizens.

    Germany last week brought in heightened border controls on its frontiers with the Czech Republic and Poland to curb an influx of asylum seekers.

    PiS also downplayed the scale of the opposition march — which may be the largest in Polish history.

    POLAND NATIONAL PARLIAMENT ELECTION POLL OF POLLS

    For more polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls.

    Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of PiS and Poland’s de facto ruler, denounced “powerful media” that support Tusk for exaggerating the size of the rally.

    “They are able to say, for example, that there were a million people in Warsaw today, as Tusk said, although both photos and police statements state that there were 60,000,” Kaczyński said, quoting an unofficial police estimate. During the rally, the route of the march was 4 kilometers long and the eight-lane streets and sidewalks were densely packed with people.

    Tusk seized on the size of the crowd to insist it shows a desire to break with PiS, which has seen years of bitter fights with Brussels over accusations it is backsliding on rule of law and democracy thanks to radical changes made to the justice system.

    “It’s not about this being the largest political demonstration in European history,” Tusk said. “Europe lives in the hope that Poland will again become a 100 percent European country, democratic and free.”

    But a PiS defeat in two weeks is going to need a very rapid change in fortunes for the opposition. Otherwise, PiS is likely to be the largest party, and will then have to hunt for partners to form a coalition that would see it ruling for an unprecedented third four-year term.

    “I’m not very optimistic,” said Katarzyna Osuch, walking along with the sea of people in Warsaw. “I think PiS might continue ruling. … I’m very disappointed.”

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    Jan Cienski

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  • Warsaw makes a risky political bet in attacking Ukraine

    Warsaw makes a risky political bet in attacking Ukraine

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    WARSAW — Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party is in the fight of its political life ahead of next month’s general election — and in its scramble for votes it’s taking aim at the country’s alliance with Ukraine.

    The latest blow came from Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who on Wednesday said that Poland has halted shipments of its own armaments to Ukraine.

    “We are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine, because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons,” Morawiecki told Poland’s Polsat television.

    It’s true that Poland has sent most of its Soviet-era tanks, fighters and other weapons to Ukraine and doesn’t have much left in its stocks. Warsaw will also continue allowing arms shipments from other allies to pass through its territory.

    “Poland still functions as a hub for international aid,” said government spokesperson Piotr Müller, adding that the country is fulfilling its existing military supply contracts with Ukraine.

    But Morawiecki’s comments come at a time when relations between Warsaw and Kyiv are the frostiest since Russia’s invasion a year and a half ago, and add to the impression that the nationalist party is undermining its alliance with Ukraine for electoral gain.

    “Morawiecki wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t obvious … but to say such a thing at such a time escalates the conflict,” said Marcin Zaborowski, a director with the Globsec think tank.

    The catalyst is grain.

    Poland, Hungary and Slovakia have closed their markets to Ukrainian grain imports, in violation of the rules of the European Union’s single market, arguing they need to protect their farmers from price drops.

    Ukraine has retaliated by filing a lawsuit against them at the World Trade Organization. It has also threatened to block some Polish agricultural exports to Ukraine.

    President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took a swipe at those countries at the United Nations this week, saying: “Alarmingly, some in Europe play out solidarity in a political theater — turning grain into a thriller … they’re helping set the stage for a Moscow actor.”

    Polish President Andrzej Duda scrapped a meeting with Zelenskyy in New York due to a scheduling conflict, and the Ukrainian ambassador to Warsaw was summoned to the foreign ministry to explain. Morawiecki characterized relations with Kyiv as “difficult.”

    Political calculation

    In Poland, the core reason for the move is PiS’s need to shore up its support among rural voters and also to peel away supporters from the far-right Confederation party, many of whose backers are skeptical about helping Ukraine.

    The Polish government sent tanks and jet fighters to Ukraine at a time when many other countries were balking at sending such equipment to Kyiv | Omar Marques/Getty Images

    “Ukrainians ruthlessly took advantage of the Polish government being a sucker, emphasized their sympathy, which of course was not there, took the cash, and now they will declare a trade war on us,” Confederation leader Sławomir Mentzen told the Polish press.

    Jacek Kucharczyk, head of the Institute for Public Affairs, a Warsaw-based think tank, characterized the shift in tone by the ruling party as “a desperate electoral ploy.”

    In POLITICO’s poll of polls, PiS has the support of 38 percent of voters while Civic Coalition, the leading opposition party, is at 29 percent. If that holds, Law and Justice won’t have enough seats in parliament to rule on its own and so will have to try to form a coalition; Confederation is the likeliest target, although the party says it won’t join forces with PiS.

    But the trends look worrying for PiS.

    The government has been hit with a growing visas-for-bribes scandal that now has the European Commission asking for explanations. A new poll by United Surveys shows that if the main opposition parties join together, they would be able to cobble together a majority government after the October 15 election.

    Shifting narrative

    The U-turn on Ukraine may help shore up some of PiS’s electoral base. But it could cause other problems.

    It undermines the government’s main foreign policy win. After years of bitter conflicts with the European Union and other key allies over rule of law, media freedom and backsliding on democratic standards, Poland’s strong support for Ukraine changed the narrative in Brussels and in Washington.

    Millions of ordinary Poles helped Ukrainian refugees fleeing across the border in the immediate aftermath of the Russian attack. The Polish government sent tanks and jet fighters to Ukraine at a time when many other countries were balking at sending such equipment to Kyiv, fearing Russian retaliation. Warsaw also took delight in pointing out the shortcomings of European countries like Germany and France.

    Zelenskyy even called Poland a “sister.”

    In an address to the Polish nation made last year in Polish, he said: “I will remember how you welcomed us, how you help us. Poles are our allies, your country is our sister. Your friendship forever. Our friendship forever. Our love forever. Together we will be victors.”

    Opinion polls show there is still strong support for helping Ukraine, with about three-quarters of Poles wanting to accept refugees.

    Millions of ordinary Poles helped Ukrainian refugees fleeing across the border in the immediate aftermath of the Russian attack | Omar Marques/Getty Images

    “The risk is that PiS voters broadly support the pro-Ukraine policy, and such a rapid policy change could be difficult to explain,” said Kucharczyk.

    PiS has toyed with skepticism about Ukraine in the past — raising the issue of wartime massacres of Poles by Ukrainian nationalist guerrillas — but the overarching message was that Poland is Ukraine’s firmest friend.

    The narrative shift is being welcomed in Moscow.

    In New York, Duda compared Ukraine to a desperate, drowning person.

    “A drowning person is extremely dangerous, he can pull you down to the depths … simply drown the rescuer,” Duda said.

    That got a thumbs-up from the Kremlin.

    “Never before did I agree with Duda as strongly as I did after this statement. Everything he said is correct,” said Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.

    The Polish opposition is also going on the attack.

    Radosław Sikorski, a former Polish foreign minister and now a member of the European Parliament for the Civic Coalition, called Morawiecki’s comments “criminally stupid.”

    “Even if we don’t have much more to give then why is he saying this in public! Does he really want [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to calculate that one or two more pushes and Ukraine will fall?” he tweeted.

    Kyiv is now trying to downplay any rift with Warsaw.

    Oleksandr Merezhko, head of Ukraine’s parliament committee on foreign relations, said he felt Morawiecki’s weapons comments weren’t linked to the growing trade fight.

    “Like every politician, I know that during an election campaign, rhetoric can be quite emotional,” he said.

    Bartosz Brzeziński and Veronika Melkozerova contributed reporting.

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    Jan Cienski

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  • Poland stops sending weapons to Ukraine amid grain fight, Warsaw says

    Poland stops sending weapons to Ukraine amid grain fight, Warsaw says

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    Warsaw has stopped supplying weapons to Kyiv and is focusing on arming itself instead, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Wednesday, amid a dispute over Ukraine’s agricultural exports.

    “We are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine, because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons,” Morawiecki said in an appearance on Polish television channel Polsat, according to European Pravda. “If you don’t want to be on the defensive, you have to have something to defend yourself with,” he added, insisting, though, that the move wouldn’t endanger Ukraine’s security.

    Morawiecki’s terse comments came as tensions escalated between Kyiv and the EU over the past week, after the European Commission moved to allow Ukrainian grain sales across the bloc, ending restrictions on grain imports which five eastern EU countries originally sought to protect their farmers from competition.

    Poland, Hungary and Slovakia responded to the Commission’s move by imposing unilateral bans on Ukrainian grain imports, in apparent violation of the EU’s internal market rules. Kyiv struck back by filing lawsuits against the three countries at the World Trade Organization.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday took a thinly veiled swipe at those imposing grain bans, telling the U.N. General Assembly: “It is alarming to see how some in Europe, some of our friends in Europe, play out solidarity in a political theater — making a thriller from the grain. They may seem to play their own role but in fact they are helping set the stage to a Moscow actor.”

    While Zelenskyy didn’t specifically name-check Poland, Warsaw summoned Kyiv’s ambassador to the foreign ministry in response.

    Morawiecki also delivered a “warning” to “Ukraine’s authorities,” earlier telling Polsat, “if they are to escalate the conflict like that, we will add additional products to the ban on imports into Poland. Ukrainian authorities do not understand the degree to which Poland’s farming industry has been destabilized.”

    Poland is in the midst of a high-stakes campaign ahead of an election next month, with the right-wing Law and Justice government battling for reelection. While Warsaw initially threw its weight behind the campaign to help Kyiv fend off Russia’s attempted invasion, that full-throated support has waned as the consequences of supporting Ukraine for its own farmers have become more evident.

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    Zoya Sheftalovich

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  • Europe blinks amid calls to stop backing Ukraine 

    Europe blinks amid calls to stop backing Ukraine 

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    BRUSSELS — Russian President Vladimir Putin has made little secret of his plan to keep up the pressure on Ukraine until Western resolve breaks. More than 500 days into his war of aggression, he now has reason to believe things are working out the way he hoped, even if events are not playing out how he might have imagined.

    Governments in Poland, Estonia, Slovakia and others in Central and Eastern Europe have been among Kyiv’s staunchest allies since the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Beyond sending weapons and welcoming millions of Ukrainian refugees, they have been Ukraine’s loudest advocates in the West, pushing for a tough line against Moscow in the face of reluctance from countries like France and Germany.

    But as the leaders of some of these ride-or-die allies face reelection battles or other domestic challenges, and governments get nervous about the impact of Ukraine one day joining the European Union, that support is starting to waver.

    The most striking example is Poland, whose Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced on Wednesday that he would stop delivering new weapons to Ukraine. The statement marked a stunning escalation in a dispute between Kyiv and its closest EU neighbor over grain shipments Warsaw claims are undercutting production from Polish farmers ahead of a parliamentary election on October 15.

    “Ukraine realizes that in the last months, they’re not bordering Poland, they’re bordering Polish elections,” said Ivan Krastev, chair of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria. So for now, “the votes of a hundred thousand Polish farmers are more important for the government than what is going to be the cost for Ukraine. And we’re going to see this happening in many places,” he added.

    Morawiecki is facing a tough challenge from Donald Tusk, a former prime minister who has also served as president of the European Council. As part of his electoral strategy, the prime minister is courting supporters of the far-right Confederation Party, which opposes aid for Ukraine.

    “We are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine, because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons,” Morawiecki said in an appearance on Polish television channel Polsat.

    While it’s tempting to write off the tensions as electoral fireworks, there are reasons to believe they could persist beyond the campaign. As a Western diplomat who asked not to be named pointed out, the grain dispute between Warsaw and Kyiv reveals deeper misgivings about Ukraine joining the EU. “For 18 months, Poland has badgered any member state that would utter the slightest hesitation towards Ukraine,” the diplomat said. “Now they’re showing their true colors.”

    The problem for Kyiv is that it’s not just Poland where support seems to be slipping. Since the start of the war, the Baltic states have led the pro-Ukraine charge in Brussels and Washington, perhaps nobody as loudly or effectively as Estonia’s liberal prime minister, Kaja Kallas.

    As the daughter of a former prime minister and European commissioner, Kallas was widely seen as the emblem of a newly emboldened Eastern Europe that would ride the Ukraine crisis to positions of greater power in Brussels. But Kallas’ credibility took a hit over a scandal involving her husband, who was revealed to own a stake in a company that kept doing business in Russia after the February 2022 invasion, even as his wife was advocating for ending all trade with Moscow.

    Asked about Kallas’ troubles, Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said that no amount of political upheaval would change the country’s course: “We constantly have elections, and we constantly have domestic issues, but it doesn’t change our policy,” Tsahkna said. “One thing Estonia has had in all these 32 years is the same continuous foreign policy.”

    That said, Kallas has been a lot less vocal since the scandal broke in late August, depriving Kyiv of one of its strongest advocates in Western capitals.

    Poland’s PM Mateusz Morawiecki announced on Wednesday that he would stop delivering new weapons to Ukraine | Omar Marques/Getty Images

    Then there’s Slovakia. The Central European country has been among Europe’s biggest backers of Ukraine, but elections on September 30 could turn it into a skeptic overnight.

    “If you have a society where only 40 percent support arms delivery to Ukraine and your government offers support almost at the level of the Baltics, that creates a backlash,” said Milan Nič, a fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

    Robert Fico, the country’s populist former prime minister, is campaigning on a pro-Russian, anti-American platform that opposes sanctions against Russian individuals and further arms deliveries to Kyiv. He’s on course to win the election, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls.

    A victory for Fico would give Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — one of Kyiv’s biggest European skeptics — an ally on the EU stage. If his party gets enough support to be part of the government, Fico told the Associated Press earlier this month, “we won’t send any arms or ammunition to Ukraine anymore.”

    To be sure, Ukraine still has plenty of strong backers in Europe. Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Sweden, Finland and others remain strongly committed, and French President Emmanuel Macron has recently swung strongly behind Kyiv. Some analysts also downplay the importance of Poland and Slovakia’s role at the moment, pointing out that there aren’t many weapons left to deliver in the countries’ armories.

    Kyiv, for now, seems relaxed. Speaking at a press conference after an event in Brussels last Friday, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Olha Stefanishyna downplayed the static between Kyiv and some of its erstwhile friends: “We have a strong commitment and a political confirmation that none of the political processes will affect the ongoing support,” she said.

    It’s hard to imagine, however, that somewhere Putin isn’t rubbing his hands, and watching.

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    Nicholas Vinocur and Jacopo Barigazzi

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  • Right wing set for big gains in 2024 EU election, polling shows

    Right wing set for big gains in 2024 EU election, polling shows

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    BRUSSELS — Right-wing and Euroskeptic parties are set to surge in the next European election at the expense of centrist parties, exclusive polling analysis by POLITICO’s Research and Analysis Division shows.

    If the elections were held today, the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) would become the third-biggest group in the European Parliament — tied with the centrist Renew — with 89 seats.

    EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ELECTION POLL OF POLLS

    For more polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls.

    That would represent a massive 23-seat gain from the 2019 elections for the sometime-Euroskeptic ECR — home of Poland’s ruling nationalist Law and Justice party — with most of the surge coming from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy.

    Similarly, the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) group would make sizable gains, winning 77 seats — a 15-seat rise driven by the Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) recent surge in the polls.

    The anticipated rightward swing reflects a broader trend across national elections in Europe, where voters in countries such as Italy, Finland and Greece have increasingly elevated more conservative and hard-right parties.

    That said, POLITICO’s analysis shows that the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) would retain its spot as the Parliament’s largest group, despite a predicted 12-seat loss taking it down to 165 seats.

    Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany | Rinny Hartmann/AFP via Getty Images

    The center-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) would even gain two seats to preserve its spot as Parliament’s No. 2 group, with 145 seats. Renew would drop 12 seats to match ECR in the third slot, the analysis shows.

    That means the traditional grand coalition of the EPP, S&D and Renew, which spans the center left to center right, would keep its clear majority over a potential new right-leaning alliance of EPP, ECR and Renew.

    Recently, however, the EPP has shown a willingness to partner with ECR, allying with the group to oppose Green Deal legislation.

    The election’s biggest losers would be the Greens, which would keep only 48 seats, a loss of 24 spots, while the Left group would gain eight seats but remain the smallest group in Parliament with 45 seats.

    Europeans will head to the polls from June 6-9 next year to select the 705 MEPs who represent them in Brussels. The number of MEPs is set to increase to 720 for the 2024 elections but, as the changes still need to be formally approved by the European Council and Parliament itself, the polling estimates are based on a 705-seat scenario.

    These seat projections are based on national voting intention polls aggregated in POLITICO’s Poll of Polls, taking into account each country’s current system to allocate Parliament seats.

    POLITICO’s Research and Analysis Division also consulted with experts to assign new unaffiliated European lawmakers to their likely groupings.

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    Nicolas Camut

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  • Zelenskyy urges cool heads as Poland lashes out at Ukraine in gratitude spat

    Zelenskyy urges cool heads as Poland lashes out at Ukraine in gratitude spat

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    Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stepped in to call for restraint late Tuesday in an effort to end an escalating diplomatic spat with Ukrainian ally Poland.

    Earlier on Tuesday, Kyiv had summoned Warsaw’s envoy after a senior Polish official suggested Ukraine should be more grateful for the support it has been receiving from Poland since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion last year.

    “We greatly appreciate the historical support of Poland, which together with us has become a real shield of Europe from sea to sea. And there cannot be a single crack in this shield,” Zelenskyy said.

    “We will not allow any political instants to spoil the relations between the Ukrainian and Polish peoples, and emotions should definitely cool down,” the president added.

    Poland has been one of Kyiv’s most vocal supporters since Moscow’s aggression ramped up in 2022. But in recent months, its relations with Kyiv have been hurt by Warsaw’s decision to extend a ban on some Ukrainian agricultural exports, which the Polish government considers a threat to the interests of domestic farmers.

    Initially focused on grain, the dispute is now shifting to soft fruit such as raspberries and currants, with Poland’s farmers — who are set to be a key constituency in the upcoming Polish general elections in October — complaining that lower-priced imports from Ukraine are undercutting them.

    The brewing contretemps escalated Tuesday after Ukraine summoned the Polish ambassador to Kyiv over “unacceptable” comments made by a senior Polish official.

    In an interview with Polish media, Marcin Przydacz, head of Poland’s international policy office, said Kyiv should “start appreciating the role Poland has played for Ukraine in recent months and years” — sparking ire from Ukrainian officials who hauled in Warsaw’s ambassador and prompting Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki then to slap Kyiv down.

    POLAND NATIONAL PARLIAMENT ELECTION POLL OF POLLS

    For more polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls.

    “The summoning of the Polish ambassador — a representative of the country that was the only one left in Kyiv on the day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — to the Ukrainian foreign ministry should never have happened,” Morawiecki said.

    “Given the enormity of the support Poland has given Ukraine, such mistakes should not happen,” the prime minister added.

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    Nicolas Camut and Bartosz Brzezinski

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  • Wagner forces are trying to ‘destabilize’ NATO, Polish PM says

    Wagner forces are trying to ‘destabilize’ NATO, Polish PM says

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    Russia’s Wagner Group might carry out “sabotage actions” and their threat should not be underestimated, said Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Thursday, warning that the mercenary group’s provocations are an attempt to destabilize NATO.

    Morawiecki and Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nausėda met at the Suwałki Gap to discuss the threat posed by the Wagner forces, some of whom have relocated to Belarus following the aborted mutiny in June against the Kremlin.

    “Our borders have been stopping various hybrid attacks for years,” Morawiecki said. “Russia and Belarus are increasing their numerous provocations and intrigues in order to destabilize the border of NATO’s eastern flank.”

    Nausėda echoed the sentiment, saying the presence of Wagner mercenaries in Belarus is a security risk for Lithuania, Poland and other NATO allies.

    “We stay vigilant and prepared for any possible scenario,” Nausėda wrote on social media. Morawiecki said that the number of Wagner mercenaries in Belarus could exceed 4,000.

    The Polish prime minister also thanked Lithuania for “military cooperation and for the joint promise that we will defend every piece of land of NATO countries.”

    “Today, the borders of Poland and Lithuania are the borders of the free world that stops the pressure from the despotism from the East,” he said, about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing war on Ukraine.

    Nausėda said that any closing of the border with Belarus is a decision that should be taken “in a coordinated way between Poland, Lithuania and Latvia,” national broadcaster LRT reported.

    Some Wagner troops have moved to Belarus from Russia under a deal to end the group’s 24-hour rebellion against Moscow led by Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. The move immediately sparked tension with Belarusian neighbors, prompting Poland to re-station military units to the east of the country, closer to the frontier with Belarus.

    Tensions escalated Tuesday when Poland moved troops to its border after accusing two Belarusian helicopters of breaching its airspace. Belarus denied the accusation, but Poland notified NATO and summoned Belarusian representatives to discuss the incident.

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    Claudia Chiappa

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  • Putin warns Poland an attack on Belarus would be an attack on Russia

    Putin warns Poland an attack on Belarus would be an attack on Russia

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    Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Poland that any attack on Belarus will be considered an attack on Russia, in a direct threat to the NATO country televised on Friday.

    “Aggression against Belarus will mean aggression against the Russian Federation,” Putin told a televised Security Council meeting on Friday, shown by Reuters. “We will respond to it with all means at our disposal,” he said.

    Putin appeared to be responding to Warsaw’s decision this week to re-station military units to the east of the country, closer to the Belarusian border, following the Russian ally’s hosting of Wagner mercenary fighters.

    Putin said that Poland appears to have interests in retaking eastern territories it lost to former Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin, including “a good chunk of Ukraine … to take back the historic lands.” He added that “it’s well known that they dream of Belarusian lands as well.”

    Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki hit back later on Friday, tweeting that “Stalin was a war criminal, guilty of the death of hundreds of thousands of Poles.” He said that the ambassador of the Russian Federation will be summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

    Morawiecki’s defense minister defended the relocation of troops on Friday, pointing to reports that the Wagner mercenaries were carrying out training exercises with the Belarusian army.

    “Training or joint exercises of the Belarusian army and the Wagner group are undoubtedly a provocation,” said Zbigniew Hoffmann, secretary of the government’s National Security Committee, according to a report by Polish state-run news agency PAP.

    Belarus has been Russia’s ally throughout Putin’s war on Ukraine. In addition to hosting the Wagner Group following an insurrection on Moscow led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has allowed Putin to station tactical nuclear weapons on its territory.

    Germany said Berlin and NATO were prepared to support Poland in defending the eastern border, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Friday, according to Reuters.

    Bulgaria, meanwhile, has agreed to provide Ukraine with some 100 armored personnel carriers, marking a U-turn in the NATO member’s policy on sending military equipment to Kyiv following the appointment of a new, pro-Western government. The parliament in Sofia late Friday approved the administration’s proposal to make the first shipment of heavy military equipment to Ukraine since the beginning of the war, the AP reported.

     Separately, a drone attack on an ammunition depot in Crimea prompted an evacuation and brief suspension of road traffic on the bridge linking the peninsula to Russia, Reuters reported. Sergei Aksyonov, the Moscow-installed regional governor, said on Saturday that there was an explosion at the depot in Krasnohvardiiske in central Crimea but reported no damage or casualties, according to the report.

    The brief halting of traffic on the Crimean Bridge came five days after blasts there killed two people and damaged a section of the roadway — the second major attack on the bridge since the start of the war.

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    Helen Collis

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  • Greece to the EU: Come help stop migrant boats before they get here

    Greece to the EU: Come help stop migrant boats before they get here

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    Greece wants the EU to stop migrant boats before they even get to Europe. 

    In an interview with POLITICO, newly appointed Greek Migration Minister Dimitris Kairidis called on the EU to resume an operation that aims to halt migrants before leaving Libya, a common departure point for asylum seekers coming to Europe.

    The appeal comes as the Greek government fights off allegations of negligence after a shipwreck killed hundreds of migrants heading for Europe from Libya. Survivors have claimed the Greek coast guard’s attempt to tow the vessel caused it to capsize, and various media accounts have shown the boat was stalled for hours before the coast guard intervened.

    “These tragedies will continue to happen unless we stop departures from Libya and other places on ships that are unseaworthy,” Kairidis said. “There will, unfortunately, be cases where it will simply be impossible to always save human life.”

    One solution to avoid other tragedies, Kairidis argued, is for the EU to resume “Operation Sophia,” an EU-led naval mission designed to break up smuggling routes in the Mediterranean that was officially shelved in 2020. 

    “We support the launch of an ‘Operation Sophia-plus’ to break up migrant smuggling routes from Libya,” Kairidis told POLITICO during his first visit to Brussels, where he met EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson.

    “EU vessels would station in the Libyan territorial waters with the agreement of the local government, which I am hopeful will accept,” he added. 

    The EU has not settled on how it should respond to the Adriana shipwreck. The European Parliament on Thursday backed a non-binding resolution urging the EU to establish a Europe-wide search-and-rescue operation for migrants. But some diplomats fear this would only encourage migrant departures from North Africa and feed the business model of people smugglers.   

    Johansson declined to endorse this approach during a tense hearing on Wednesday.

    The Greek proposal is slightly different than the Parliament proposal, however. It would essentially be aimed at blocking boats from leaving in the first place, breaking up smuggling routes through the Mediterranean in the process. But critics point out that Libya has traditionally been reluctant to let EU vessels enter its territorial waters for such efforts, and that its detention centers violate migrants’ rights. 

    Kairidis also defended the Greek coast guard against criticism that it ignored multiple offers of help from the EU border agency Frontex.

    One solution to avoid other tragedies, Kairidis argued, is for the EU to resume “Operation Sophia,” an EU-led naval mission designed to break up smuggling routes in the Mediterranean | Dimitris Kapantais/SOOC/AFP via Getty Images

    The minister pointed out that the Greek coast guard has saved thousands of migrants in recent years, and he deferred any judgment on its recent actions to an ongoing national investigation. 

    “If someone is found guilty, there will be consequences,” he said. “But for the time being we shouldn’t bow to political pressure.”

    Kairidis pushed back against testimonies from survivors accusing the Greek authorities of towing the migrant ship and ultimately causing it to capsize. He pointed out that these statements “are not a definite proof,” and that the trawler could not have been towed without the consent of those on board.  

    The tragedy has increased pressure on Frontex chief Hans Leijtens to end the agency’s operations in Greece due to the country’s lack of cooperation.  

    But Kairidis warned that such a move would “be totally counterproductive,” as the agency’s work “is of paramount importance to save more lives.”

    Separately, the minister defended the Greek government against accusations that it is taking a hardline approach to migration on a par with Hungarian and Polish far-right leaders Viktor Orbán and Mateusz Morawiecki. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a center-right conservative, recently won a resounding re-election victory. 

    Kairidis also defended the Greek coast guard against criticism that it ignored multiple offers of help from the EU border agency Frontex | Bulent Kilic/AFP via Getty Images

    “Mitsotakis is not Orbán,” Kairidis said. “Hungary and Poland don’t want Frontex, and they have voted against the migration and asylum pact” — a reference to the EU’s recent deal to overhaul how it processes and redistributes migrants.

    “We have been the swing state to get the pact over the line,” he added.

    Kairidis said the far right and the far left were merely weaponizing migration to “destroy the political center, embodied by [French President Emmanuel] Macron and Mitsotakis.”

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    Gregorio Sorgi

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  • ChatGPT boss wants HQ in Europe

    ChatGPT boss wants HQ in Europe

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    Sam Altman wants you to know he loves Europe.

    The CEO of OpenAI, the maker of the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, spent last week touring the Continent, stopping in Spain, France, Poland, Germany and the United Kingdom. He was at once talking AI regulation with policymakers — he met national leaders Pedro Sánchez, Emmanuel Macron, Mateusz Morawiecki, Olaf Scholz, and Rishi Sunak — and scouting locations for an OpenAI European office.

    “We really need an office in Europe,” Altman told POLITICO at a Paris event Friday. “We also just really want one.” Under the European Union’s upcoming Artificial Intelligence Act, companies with EU-based users would need a presence in the bloc, with national “supervisory authorities” in charge of implementing the regulation. The eventual choice of its HQ location will, therefore, determine which member country will oversee it when it comes to enforcing the AI Act.

    Since its launch in November 2022, OpenAI’s ChatGPT — a bot able to create texts such as songs, scripts, articles and software based on written prompts — has caused both optimism and anxiety about what the rise of AI means for the future of humankind. While some have marveled at the tool’s prowess in creating computer code and streamlining office work, others fear that it could be used to generate troves of automated disinformation, manipulative content and biased material — or even put millions of people out of a job.

    Nevertheless, politicians appear eager to host the world’s hottest AI lab. Opening the event, French Digital Minister Jean-Noël Barrot read a ChatGPT-generated description of Altman (“innovative, influential, visionary”) before pitching France as a “great AI country” — rattling off a list that included talent, abundant nuclear energy (to power the computers underpinning the AI), and cultural heritage among its assets.

    In the U.K., where Altman also briefed national security personnel, a person familiar with his conversation with Sunak, who was granted anonymity to talk of high-level meetings, described the British prime minister as “deferential.”

    Altman is still deliberating on where to house the new office. “If you had to pick just based on the most AI research talent, you’d pick France,” he told POLITICO. “But I’ve been super-impressed by the talent and energy everywhere.” OpenAI already has staff working in London, according to LinkedIn, and in September 2022 it created a U.K. subsidiary, according to the country’s business registry.

    In Paris, Altman strove to quash reports, from Reuters, that OpenAI might leave the EU if the AI Act proved too onerous. “We plan to comply. We want to offer services in Europe,” Altman told the Parisian audience. “We just want to make sure we’re technically able to. And the conversations have been super-productive this week,” he added.

    First floated by the European Commission in 2021, the AI Act would ban some uses of AI uses (such as social scoring and some instances of facial recognition) and impose stricter rules related to safety and oversight when it comes to sensitive AI applications considered “high-risk.” On top of that, according to a version of the AI Act adopted earlier this month by lawmakers in the European Parliament, “generative” models such as ChatGPT — which can create new content, like text or photos — would have to disclose a summary of copyrighted materials used as training data.

    The rule — which still needs to be agreed upon by representatives of the Commission and EU member countries — addresses worries from artists and publishers that AI firms might use their intellectual property without their consent or knowledge.

    “That sounds like a great thing to ask for,” Altman told POLITICO. “But — due to the way these datasets are collected and the fact people have been copying data in different ways on different websites — to say I have to legally warrant every piece of copyrighted content in there is not as easy as it sounds.”

    Altman thinks an easier way for creators to know if their work is being used would be based on whether their names appear in the prompts users give to an AI. “Every time you ask, ‘I want a song in the style of the Beatles,’ that would be clear,” Altman said.

    Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI, the maker of the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT | Drew Angerer/Getty Images

    All in all, however, Altman struck an optimistic tone about the AI Act and said he’d be happy to meet EU policymakers — despite skipping a planned Brussels stop in his tour. He told POLITICO that OpenAI would join the EU’s first “sandbox,” based in Spain, where AI companies will be able to test their regulatory compliance.

    “It’s going to get to a good place,” he said. “Regulatory clarity will be a good thing.”

    This article has been updated.

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    Gian Volpicelli

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  • Europe’s eastern half claps back at Macron: We need the US

    Europe’s eastern half claps back at Macron: We need the US

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    Stop driving Europe away from the United States, dismayed central and eastern European officials fumed on Tuesday as French President Emmanuel Macron’s comments continued to ripple across the Continent.

    Macron jolted allies in the EU’s eastern half after a visit to China last week when he cautioned the Continent against getting pulled into a U.S.-China dispute over Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own, imploring his neighbors to avoid becoming Washington and Beijing’s “vassals.”

    The comments rattled those near the EU’s eastern edge, who have historically favored closer ties with the Americans — especially on defense — and pushed for a hasher approach to Beijing.

    “Instead of building strategic autonomy from the United States, I propose a strategic partnership with the United States,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Tuesday before flying off to the U.S., of all places, for a three-day visit.

    Privately, diplomats were even franker.

    “We cannot understand [Macron’s] position on transatlantic relations during these very challenging times,” said one diplomat from an Eastern European country, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely express themselves. “We, as the EU, should be united. Unfortunately, this visit and French remarks following it are not helpful.”

    The reactions reflect the long-simmering divisions within Europe over how to best defend itself. Macron has long argued for Europe to become more autonomous economically and militarily — a push many in Central and Eastern Europe fear could alienate a valuable U.S. helping keep Russia at bay, even if they support boosting the EU’s ability to act independently. 

    “In the current world of geopolitical shifts, and especially in the face of Russia’s war against Ukraine, it is obvious that democracies have to work closer together than ever before,” said another senior diplomat from Eastern Europe. “We should be all reminded of the wisdom of the first U.S ambassador to France Benjamin Franklin who rightly remarked that either we stick together or we will be hanged separately.” 

    Macron, a third senior diplomat from the same region huffed, was freelancing yet again: “It is not the first time that Macron has expressed views that are his own and do not represent the EU’s position.”

    Walking into controversy

    In his interview, Macron touched on a tense subject within Europe: how it should balance itself against the superpower fight between the U.S. and China.

    The French president encouraged Europe to chart its own course, cautioning that Europe faces a “great risk” if it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy.”

    Macron said he wants Europe to become a “third pole” to counterbalance China and the U.S. in the long term | Pool photo by Jacques Witt/AFP via Getty Images

    It’s a stance that has many adherents within Europe — and has even worked its way into official EU policy as officials work to slowly ensure the Continent’s supply lines aren’t fully yoked to China and others on everything from weapons to electric vehicles. 

    Macron said he wants Europe to become a “third pole” to counterbalance China and the U.S. in the long term. An imminent conflict between Being and Washington, he argued, would put that goal at risk. 

    Yet out east, officials lamented that the French leader was simply treating the U.S. and China as if they were essentially the same in a global power play.

    The comments, the second diplomat said, were “both ill-timed and inappropriate to put both the United States and China on a par and suggest that the EU should keep strategic distance to both of them.”

    A Central European diplomat flatly dismissed Macron’s stance as “pretty outrageous,” while another official from the same region chalked it up to an attempt “to distract from other problems and show that France is bigger than what it is” — a reference to the protests roiling France amid Macron’s pension reforms.

    The frustration in Central and Eastern Europe stems in part from a feeling that the French president has never made clear who would replace Washington in Europe — especially if Russia expands its war beyond Ukraine, said Kristi Raik, head of the foreign policy program at the International Centre for Defence and Security, a think tank in Estonia, a country of about 1.3 million people that borders Russia.

    It’s an emotional point for Europe’s eastern half, where memories of the Soviet era linger. 

    “We hear Macron talking about European strategic autonomy, and somehow just being completely silent about the issue, which has become so clear in Ukraine, that actually European security and defense depends very strongly on the U.S.,” Raik said. 

    Raik noted, of course, that European countries, most notably Germany, are scrambling to update their militaries. France has also pledged large increases in its defense budgets. 

    But these changes, she cautioned, will take a “very long time.”

    If Macron “wants to be serious in showing that he really aims at a Europe that is capable of defending itself,” Raik argued, “he also should be showing that France is willing to do much more to defend Europe vis-à-vis Russia.” 

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    Jacopo Barigazzi

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  • Poland’s Morawiecki plays Europe’s anti-Macron in Washington

    Poland’s Morawiecki plays Europe’s anti-Macron in Washington

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    There’s an Emmanuel Macron-shaped shadow hovering over this week’s U.S. visit by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

    In contrast to the French president — who in an interview with POLITICO tried to put some distance between the U.S. and Europe in any future confrontation with China over Taiwan and called for strengthening the Continent’s “strategic autonomy” — the Polish leader is underlining the critical importance of the alliance between America and Europe, not least because his country is one of Kyiv’s strongest allies in the war with Russia.

    “Instead of building strategic autonomy from the United States, I propose a strategic partnership with the United States,” he said before flying to Washington.

    In the U.S. capital, Morawiecki continued with his under-the-table kicks at the French president.

    “I see no alternative, and we are absolutely on the same wavelength here, to building an even closer alliance with the Americans. If countries to the west of Poland understand this less, it is probably because of historical circumstances,” he said on Tuesday in Washington.

    Unlike France, which has spent decades bristling at Europe’s reliance on the U.S. for its security, Poland is one of the Continent’s keenest American allies. Warsaw has pushed hard for years for U.S. troops to be stationed on its territory, and many of its recent arms contracts have gone to American companies. It signed a $1.4 billion deal earlier this year to buy a second batch of Abrams tanks, and has also agreed to spend $4.6 billion on advanced F-35 fighter jets.

    “I am glad that this proposal for an even deeper strategic partnership is something that finds such fertile ground here in the United States, because we know that there are various concepts formulated by others in Europe, concepts that create more threats, more question marks, more unknowns,” Morawiecki said. “Poland is trying to maintain the most commonsense policy based on a close alliance with the United States within the framework of the European Union, and this is the best path for Poland.”

    Fast friends

    Poland has become one of Ukraine’s most important allies, and access to its roads, railways and airports is crucial in funneling weapons, ammunition and other aid to Ukraine.

    That’s helped shift perceptions of Poland — seen before the war as an increasingly marginal member of the Western club thanks to its issues with violating the rule of law, into a key country of the NATO alliance.

    Warsaw also sees the Russian attack on Ukraine as justifying its long-held suspicion of its historical foe, and it hasn’t been shy in pointing the finger at Paris and Berlin for being wrong about the threat posed by the Kremlin.

    “Old Europe believed in an agreement with Russia, and old Europe failed,” Morawiecki said in a joint news conference with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. “But there is a new Europe — Europe that remembers what Russian communism was. And Poland is the leader of this new Europe.”

    That’s why Macron’s comments have been seized on by Warsaw.

    According to Poland’s PM Mateusz Morawiecki, Emmanuel Macron’s talks of distancing the EU from America “threatens to break up” the block | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images

    “I absolutely don’t agree with President Macron. We believe that more America is needed in Europe … We want more cooperation with the U.S. on a partnership basis,” Marcin Przydacz, a foreign policy adviser to Polish President Andrzej Duda, told Poland’s Radio Zet, adding that the strategic autonomy idea pushed by Macron “has the goal of cutting links between Europe and the United States.”

    While Poland is keen on European countries hitting NATO’s goal of spending at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense — a target that only seven alliance members, including Poland, but not France and Germany, are meeting — and has no problem with them building up military industries, it doesn’t want to weaken ties with the U.S., said Sławomir Dębski, head of the state-financed Polish Institute of International Affairs.

    He warned that Macron’s talks of distancing Europe from America in the event of a conflict with China “threatens to break up the EU, which is against the interests not only of Poland, but also of most European countries.”

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    Jan Cienski

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  • Fighter jets coming ASAP, Poland tells Ukraine

    Fighter jets coming ASAP, Poland tells Ukraine

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    Poland will deliver four Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine “in the next few days,” President Andrzej Duda said Thursday.

    Poland is the first country to formally commit to sending combat planes to Ukraine, which Kyiv says it urgently needs to repel the Russian invasion, which has become a brutal war of attrition in the eastern Donbas region.

    “We will be handing over four fully operational planes,” Duda said at a joint press conference with Czech President Petr Pavel, according to French newswire AFP.

    Additional planes which are “currently under maintenance” will be “handed over gradually,” Duda added, and Poland will replace the MiGs with American-made F-35s and South Korean FA-50 fighters.

    After convincing its Western allies to supply Ukraine with dozens of tanks following a months-long diplomatic marathon, Kyiv has been intensively lobbying its partners in recent weeks to send modern fighter jets.

    As he toured European capitals last month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made repeated pleas to the U.K. and France to provide modern jets to boost his country’s aging air force, which is mostly made up of Soviet-era planes.

    Yet, Kyiv’s allies have been wary of handing over the latest generation of combat planes, such as American F-16s, out of fear it would only serve to further escalate the conflict.

    So far, the U.K. has started training Ukrainian pilots as a “first step” toward sending jets, while the U.S. has welcomed two pilots on an American airbase to assess their flying skills, but will not let them operate American F-16s.

    Meanwhile, countries such as France and the Netherlands have expressed openness to the idea, but steered clear of making any formal commitments.

    The Polish government — one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022 — had already signaled its intention to send jets in recent days.

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    Nicolas Camut

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  • Pope John Paul II and pedophile priests becomes Poland’s top political issue

    Pope John Paul II and pedophile priests becomes Poland’s top political issue

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    WARSAW — War? Inflation? Corruption? Nope, the big subject dominating Poland’s politics ahead of this fall’s parliamentary election is the legacy of John Paul II.

    Although the canonized Polish pontiff has been dead since 2005, he’s become the hottest subject in Poland following an explosive documentary aired by the U.S.-owned broadcaster TVN, alleging that when he was a cardinal in his home city of Kraków, he protected priests accused of sexually molesting children.

    That caused a collective meltdown in the ranks of the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which is closely allied with the powerful Roman Catholic Church.

    U.S. Ambassador Mark Brzezinski was even summoned (later toned down to “invited”) to appear at the foreign ministry. 

    In a statement, the ministry said it “recognizes that the potential outcome of these activities is in line with the goals of a hybrid war aimed at causing divisions and tensions within Polish society.”

    PiS also pushed through a parliamentary resolution “in defense of the good name of Pope John Paul II.”

    “The [parliament] strongly condemns the shameful campaign conducted by the media … against the Great Pope St. John Paul II, the greatest Pole in history,” the resolution said.

    The government and its affiliated media have launched a wide-ranging campaign about John Paul II. A gigantic picture of the pope was projected on the façade of the presidential palace in Warsaw. Public broadcaster TVP is now airing a daily papal sermon. 

    Papal politics

    It’s all a political play, as PiS has found what it hopes will be electoral rocket fuel ahead of the election, said Ben Stanley, an associate professor at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw.

    “Defending John Paul II offers PiS an opportunity to show they’re on what they claim is the right side of a dispute that poses authentic Polish values against something inauthentic and suspicious,” Stanley said.

    Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki over the weekend accused the opposition of  “being ashamed of the most important countryman in the history of the republic.”

    POLAND NATIONAL PARLIAMENT ELECTION POLL OF POLLS

    For more polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls.

    The party has a track record of finding wedge issues ahead of elections.

    In 2015, during the refugee crisis, the party’s leader accused migrants of importing “all sorts of parasites and protozoa” into Europe.

    In 2020, PiS-supported President Andrzej Duda helped galvanize his reelection campaign by launching attacks on LGBTQ+ activists as supporting an ideology that was inimical to Polish values.

    In recent months, state-backed media has latched on to climate concerns from opposition politicians by accusing them of aiming to force Poles to drop their beloved pork cutlets and replace them with edible insects.

    “You will notice that the debate about eating insects and living in 15-minute cities has all but disappeared now. John Paul II has a lot more potential,” Stanley said.

    Although Poland is secularizing, with a steady fall in new priests, a decline in people attending Sunday mass, and large numbers of pupils abandoning religious education, the country is still one of the most Catholic in Europe. The Church still has an outsized influence among the elderly and those in smaller towns and villages — PiS’s electoral strongholds.

    The JP2 gambit caught the opposition flat-footed; many of their supporters tend to be more secular, but the parties can’t risk offending religious voters if they hope to win power this fall.  

    Powerful pontiff

    The late pope is often credited with helping cause the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe; his pilgrimages to his home country were seen as a key factor in the rise of the Solidarity labor union in 1980. He remains a revered figure across the country.

    Civic Platform, Poland’s biggest opposition party, sat out the vote on the papal defense resolution. The party accused PiS of playing politics with the issue.

    “You don’t want to defend John Paul II, you want to sign him up to PiS!” Paweł Kowal, an MP for Civic Platform, said during the parliamentary debate on the resolution. 

    While the opposition dithered, Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, the head of the country’s conference of bishops, denounced the reports on John Paul II as “shocking attempts to discredit his person and work, made under the guise of concern for the truth and good.”

    Uncomfortably for the Polish church, Pope Francis put out a pretty lukewarm defense of his predecessor | Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images

    It’s not just TVN accusing John Paul II of turning a blind eye to clerical pedophiles.

    Similar allegations are made in a new book by Dutch journalist Ekke Overbeek, “Maxima Culpa: John Paul II Knew,” which says when he was a bishop, John Paul II moved pedophile priests from parish to parish to keep them from being discovered.

    Both the book and the TVN documentary are being attacked for relying on communist-era secret policy archives.

    TVN, owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, responded by saying: “The role of free and reliable media is to report the facts, even if they are painful and difficult to accept.” It also stressed that the author of the documentary didn’t only rely on archived files, but also contacted people who had been abused by priests.

    Uncomfortably for the Polish church, Pope Francis put out a pretty lukewarm defense of his predecessor.

    “It is necessary to place things in their time …  at that time, everything was covered up,” he told Argentina’s La Nacion newspaper.

    With several months to go before the vote, PiS will now watch to see if John Paul II is gaining traction as an issue, Stanley said.

    “Pushing it too hard is potentially risky because it’s no longer the early 2000s and it’s not so clear this time if that many people, especially the young people, will spring to John Paul II’s defense,” he said.

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    Wojciech Kosc

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  • Who blew up Nord Stream?

    Who blew up Nord Stream?

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    Nearly six months on from the subsea gas pipeline explosions, which sent geopolitical shockwaves around the world in September, there is still no conclusive answer to the question of who blew up Nord Stream.

    Some were quick to place the blame squarely at Russia’s door — citing its record of hybrid warfare and a possible motive of intimidation, in the midst of a bitter economic war with Europe over gas supply.

    But half a year has passed without any firm evidence for this — or any other explanation — being produced by the ongoing investigations of authorities in three European countries.

    Since the day of the attack, four states — Russia, the U.S., Ukraine and the U.K. — have been publicly blamed for the explosions, with varying degrees of evidence.

    Still, some things are known for sure.

    As was widely assumed within hours of the blast, the explosions were an act of deliberate sabotage. One of the three investigations, led by Sweden’s Prosecution Authority, confirmed in November that residues of explosives and several “foreign objects” were found at the “crime scene” on the seabed, around 100 meters below the surface of the Baltic Sea, close to the Danish Island of Bornholm.

    Now two new media reports — one from the New York Times, the other a joint investigation by German public broadcasters ARD and SWR, plus newspaper Die Zeit — raised the possibility that a pro-Ukrainian group — though not necessarily state-backed — may have been responsible. On Wednesday, the German Prosecutor’s Office confirmed it had searched a ship in January suspected of transporting explosives used in the sabotage, but was still investigating the seized objects, the identities of the perpetrators and their possible motives.

    In the information vacuum since September, various theories have surfaced as to the culprit and their motive:

    Theory 1: Putin, the energy bully

    In the days immediately after the attack, the working assumption of many analysts in the West was that this was a brazen act of intimidation on the part of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin.

    Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, spelt out the hypothesis via his Twitter feed on September 27 — the day after the explosions were first detected. He branded the incident “nothing more [than] a terrorist attack planned by Russia and act of aggression towards the EU” linked to Moscow’s determination to provoke “pre-winter panic” over gas supplies to Europe.

    Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also hinted at Russian involvement. Russia denied responsibility.

    The Nord Stream pipes are part-owned by Russia’s Gazprom. The company had by the time of the explosions announced an “indefinite” shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 pipes, citing technical issues which the EU branded “fallacious pretences.” The new Nord Stream 2 pipes, meanwhile, had never been brought into the service. Within days of Gazprom announcing the shutdown in early September, Putin issued a veiled threat that Europe would “freeze” if it stuck to its plan of energy sanctions against Russia.

    But why blow up the pipeline, if gas blackmail via shutdowns had already proved effective? Why end the possibility of gas ever flowing again?

    Simone Tagliapietra, energy specialist and senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank, said it was possible that — if it was Russia — there may have been internal divisions about any such decision. “At that point, when Putin had basically decided to stop supplying [gas to] Germany, many in Russia may have been against that. This was a source of revenues.” It is possible, Tagliapietra said, that “hardliners” took the decision to end the debate by ending the pipelines.

    Blowing up Nord Stream, in this reading of the situation, was a final declaration of Russia’s willingness to cut off Europe’s gas supply indefinitely, while also demonstrating its hybrid warfare capabilities. In October, Putin said that the attack had shown that “any critical infrastructure in transport, energy or communication infrastructure is under threat — regardless of what part of the world it is located” — words viewed by many in the West as a veiled threat of more to come.

    Theory 2: The Brits did it

    From the beginning, Russian leaders have insinuated that either Ukraine or its Western allies were behind the attack. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said two days after the explosions that accusations of Russian culpability were “quite predictable and predictably stupid.” He added that Moscow had no interest in blowing up Nord Stream. “We have lost a route for gas supplies to Europe.”

    Then a month on from the blasts, the Russian defense ministry made the very specific allegation that “representatives of the U.K. Navy participated in planning, supporting and executing” the attack. No evidence was given. The same supposed British specialists were also involved in helping Ukraine coordinate a drone attack on Sevastopol in Crimea, Moscow said.  

    The U.K.’s Ministry of Defence said the “invented” allegations were intended to distract attention from Russia’s recent defeats on the battlefield. In any case, Moscow soon changed its tune.

    Theory 3: U.S. black ops

    In February, with formal investigations in Germany, Sweden and Denmark still yet to report, an article by the U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh triggered a new wave of speculation. Hersh’s allegation: U.S. forces blew up Nord Stream on direct orders from Joe Biden.

    The account — based on a single source said to have “direct knowledge of the operational planning” — alleged that an “obscure deep-diving group in Panama City” was secretly assigned to lay remotely-detonated mines on the pipelines. It suggested Biden’s rationale was to sever once and for all Russia’s gas link to Germany, ensuring that no amount of Kremlin blackmail could deter Berlin from steadfastly supporting Ukraine.

    Hersh’s article also drew on Biden’s public remarks when, in February 2022, shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion, he told reporters that should Russia invade “there will be no longer Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

    The White House described Hersh’s story as “utterly false and complete fiction.” The article certainly included some dubious claims, not least that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has “cooperated with the American intelligence community since the Vietnam War.” Stoltenberg, born in 1959, was 16 years old when the war ended.

    Russian leaders, however, seized on the report, citing it as evidence at the U.N. Security Council later in February and calling for an U.N.-led inquiry into the attacks, prompting Germany, Denmark and Sweden to issue a joint statement saying their investigations were ongoing.

    Theory 4: The mystery boatmen

    The latest clues — following reports on Tuesday from the New York Times and German media — center on a boat, six people with forged passports and the tiny Danish island of Christiansø.

    According to these reports, a boat that set sail from the German port of Rostock, later stopping at Christiansø, is at the center of the Nord Stream investigations.

    Germany’s federal prosecutor confirmed on Wednesday that a ship suspected of transporting explosives had been searched in January — and some of the 100 or so residents of tiny Christiansø told Denmark’s TV2 that police had visited the island and made inquiries. Residents were invited to come forward with information via a post on the island’s Facebook page.

    Both the New York Times and the German media reports suggested that intelligence is pointing to a link to a pro-Ukrainian group, although there is no evidence that any orders came from the Ukrainian government and the identities of the alleged perpetrators are also still unknown.

    Podolyak, Zelenskyy’s adviser, tweeted he was enjoying “collecting amusing conspiracy theories” about what happened to Nord Stream, but that Ukraine had “nothing to do” with it and had “no information about pro-Ukraine sabotage groups.”

    Meanwhile, Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned against “jumping to conclusions” about the latest reports, adding that it was possible that there may have been a “false flag” operation to blame Ukraine.

    The Danish Security and Intelligence Service said only that their investigation was ongoing, while a spokesperson for Sweden’s Prosecution Authority said information would be shared when available — but there was “no timeline” for when the inquiries would be completed.

    The mystery continues.

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    Charlie Cooper

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  • Biden wants Poland’s opinion — but he still has the power

    Biden wants Poland’s opinion — but he still has the power

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    MUNICH — NATO’s eastern flank has found its voice — but Joe Biden’s visit is a reminder that Western capitals still have the weight. 

    After Russia bombed its way into Ukraine, the military alliance’s eastern members won praise for their prescient warnings (not to mention a few apologies). They garnered respect for quickly emptying their weapons stockpiles for Kyiv and boosting defense spending to new heights. Now, they’re driving the conversation on how to deal with Russia.

    In short, eastern countries suddenly have the ear of traditional Western powers — and they are trying to move the needle. 

    “We draw the red line, then we waste the time, then we cross this red line,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said over the weekend at the Munich Security Conference, describing a now-familiar cycle of debates among Ukraine’s partners as eastern capitals push others to move faster.

    The region’s sudden prominence will be on full display as U.S. President Joe Biden travels to Poland this week, where he will sit down with leaders of the so-called Bucharest Nine — Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. 

    The choice is both symbolic and practical. Washington is keen to show its eastern partners it wants their input — and to remind Vladimir Putin of the consequences should the Kremlin leader spread his war into NATO territory. 

    Yet when it comes to allies’ most contentious decisions, like what arms to place where, the eastern leaders ultimately still have to defer to leaders like Biden — and his colleagues in Western powers like Germany. They are the ones holding the largest quantities of modern tanks, fighter jets and long-range missiles, after all. 

    “My job,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in Munich, is “to move the pendulum of imagination of my partners in western Europe.”

    “Our region has risen in relevance,” added Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský in an interview. But Western countries are still “much stronger” on the economic and military front, he added. “They are still the backbone.”

    They’re listening … now

    When Latvian Defense Minister Ināra Mūrniece entered politics over a decade ago, she recalled the skepticism that greeted her and like-minded countries when they discussed Russia on the global stage.

    “They didn’t understand us,” she said in an interview earlier this month. People saw the region as “escalating the picture,” she added. 

    Latvian Defense Minister Ināra Mūrniece | Gints Ivuskans/AFP via Getty Images

    February 24, 2022, changed things. The images of Russia rolling tanks and troops into Ukraine shocked many Westerners — and started changing minds. The Russian atrocities that came shortly after in places like Bucha and Irpin were “another turning point,” Mūrniece said. 

    Now, the eastern flank plays a key role in defining the alliance’s narrative — and its understanding of Russia. 

    “Our voice is now louder and more heard,” said Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu. 

    The Bucharest Nine — an informal format that brings together the region for dialogue with the U.S. and occasionally other partners — is one of the vehicles regional governments are using to showcase their interests.

    “It has become an authoritative voice in terms of assessment of the security situation, in terms of assessment of needs,” Aurescu said in an interview in Munich. NATO is listening to the group for a simple reason, he noted: “The security threats are coming from this part of our neighborhood.” 

    Power shifts … slowly

    While the eastern flank has prodded its western partners to send once-unthinkable weapons to Ukraine, the power balance has not completely flipped. Far from it. 

    Washington officials retain the most sway in the Western alliance. Behind them, several western European capitals take the lead.

    “Without the Germans things don’t move — without the Americans things don’t move for sure,” said one senior western European diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly. 

    And at this stage of the war, as Ukraine pushes for donations of the most modern weapons — fighter jets, advanced tanks, longer-range missile systems — it’s the alliance’s largest economies and populations that are in focus. 

    “It’s very easy for me to say that, ‘Of course, give fighter jets’ — I don’t have them,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told reporters earlier this month. 

    Asked if his country would supply Kyiv with F-16 fighter jets, Morawiecki conceded in Munich, “we have not too many of them.” | Omar Marques/Getty Images

    “So it’s up to those countries to say who have,” she said. “If I would have, I would give — but I don’t.”

    And even some eastern countries who have jets don’t want to move without their Western counterparts. 

    Asked if his country would supply Kyiv with F-16 fighter jets, Morawiecki conceded in Munich, “we have not too many of them.” He did say, however, that Poland could offer older jets — if the allies could pull together a coalition, that is.

    Another challenge for advocates of a powerful eastern voice within NATO is that the eastern flank itself is diverse. 

    Priorities vary even among like-minded countries based on their geographies. And, notably, there are some Russia-friendly outliers. 

    Hungary, for example, does not provide any weapons assistance to Ukraine and continues to maintain a relationship with the Kremlin. In fact, Budapest has become so isolated in Western policy circles that no Hungarian government officials attended the Munich Security Conference. 

    “I think the biggest problem in Hungary is the rhetoric of leadership, which sometimes really crosses the red line,” said the Czech Republic’s Lipavský, who was cautious to add that Budapest does fulfill NATO obligations, participating in alliance defense efforts. 

    Just for now?

    There are also questions about whether the east’s moment in the limelight is a permanent fixture or product of the moment. After all, China, not Russia, may be seizing western attention in the future.

    “It’s obvious that their voice is becoming louder, but that’s also a consequence of the geopolitical situation we’re in,” said the senior western European diplomat. “I’m not sure if it’s sustainable in the long run.” 

    A second senior western European diplomat, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal alliance dynamics, said that the eastern flank countries sometimes take a tough tone “because of the fear of the pivot to China.”

    NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has also reiterated that western alliance members play a role in defending the eastern flank | Johannes Simon/Getty Images

    Asked if the war has changed the balance of influence within the alliance, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said: “Yes and no.” 

    “We have to defend our territories, it is as simple as that,” she told POLITICO in Munich. “In order to do so we had to reinforce the eastern flank — Russia is on that part of the continent.” 

    NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has also reiterated that western alliance members play a role in defending the eastern flank. 

    Asked whether NATO’s center of gravity is shifting east, he said on a panel in Munich that “what has shifted east is NATO’s presence.”

    But, he added, “of course many of those troops come from the western part of the alliance — so this demonstrates how NATO is together and how we support each other.” 

    And in western Europe, there is a sense that the east does deserve attention at the moment. 

    “They might not have all the might,” said the second senior western European diplomat. “But they deserve solidarity.”

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    Lili Bayer

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  • Poland ready to build ‘smaller coalition’ to send tanks to Ukraine without Germany

    Poland ready to build ‘smaller coalition’ to send tanks to Ukraine without Germany

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    If Germany won’t play ball, then Poland will find other partners to deliver Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in pointed remarks accusing Berlin of foot-dragging in its support of Kyiv against invading Russian forces.

    Poland is prepared to go around German opposition to build a “smaller coalition” of countries and find allies willing to send the tanks to Ukraine, Morawiecki said in an interview with the Polish Press Agency published on Sunday.

    “We will not passively watch Ukraine bleed to death,” Morawiecki said.

    His remarks come amid a heated debate over whether to send the German-made battle tanks to Ukraine. Kyiv has requested the weapons in order to renew its offensive against Russia in a push to reconquer captured territory.

    Germany has expressed reluctance toward sending tanks without the U.S. doing the same, as it fears an escalation of the conflict. Berlin also holds a veto power over the re-export of the weapons from any of its allies. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has denied blocking any deliveries.

    “We are in very close dialogue on this issue with our international partners, above all with the U.S.,” Pistorius, who took up the defense post last week, said in an interview with Bild published on Sunday.

    Morawiecki has previously said that he was ready to go ahead with Leopard deliveries even without Berlin’s approval.

    “Since Minister Pistorius denies that Germany is blocking the supply of tanks to Ukraine, I would like to hear a clear declaration that Berlin supports sending them,” the prime minister told the Polish Press Agency.

    “The war is here and now. … Do the Germans want to keep them in storage until Russia defeats Ukraine and is knocking on Berlin’s door?” Morawiecki said.

    Political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko said in a statement that Germany was edging towards allowing the tanks to be sent — and advised “patience and perseverance.” But the broader takeaway was that Ukraine had to rebuild its own armaments industry in order to not have to only rely on help from abroad in the future, he added.

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    Carlo Martuscelli

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  • Poland picks Westinghouse to build its first nuclear plant

    Poland picks Westinghouse to build its first nuclear plant

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    Poland awarded a contract to build its first nuclear power plant to a U.S. bid as the country seeks to burn less coal and increase its energy independence.

    The government in Warsaw chose Westinghouse for the nuclear project, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said late Friday in a tweet praising the U.S. company’s “reliable, safe technology.”

    “A strong Poland-U.S. alliance guarantees the success of our joint initiatives,” Morawiecki said.

    Westinghouse reportedly beat out France’s EDF and South Korean state-run company Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power for the contract.

    Polish government spokesman Piotr Mueller said on Saturday that the administration would adopt a decision at a meeting on Wednesday that will launch environmental approval and investment procedures, the Associated Press reported. Mueller said the nuclear plant in northern Poland would require improving infrastructure in the area, including roads.

    U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm welcomed Warsaw’s decision, calling it a “huge step in strengthening our relationship with Poland for future generations to come.”

    “This announcement also sends a clear message to Russia: We will not let them weaponize energy any longer,” Granholm said in a tweet. “The West will stand together against this unprovoked aggression, while also diversifying energy supply chains and bolstering climate cooperation.”

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    Jones Hayden

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