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Poland’s Road to the European Union 15
Polskich Rodzin) and Self-Defence (Samoobrona) also adopted an anti-EU
stance. 31 Less radical parties such as the Polish Peasants Party (Polskie
Stronnictwo Ludowe) and Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) also openly
expressed negative views on Poland’s accession to the EU. 32 They challenged the
initial assumption that joining the Union and re-building the Polish state were
compatible if not mutually reinforcing processes. They argued that Poland’s
sovereignty would be curbed by joining the Union. Western Europe has been
accused of being too liberal, cosmopolitan and secular. It was fiercely argued that
entering the Union and reuniting the two halves of Europe would prevent Poland
from cultivating its national and religious traditions. 33 An editorial in ‘Polish
Thought’ put it as follows:
“An understanding of Europe as a [cultural] space rooted in antique civilization and in
Christianity, whose symbols were Aachen and Rome - this Europe is simply
non-existent. Our contemporary Europe is a Europe of legal homosexual marriages and
pornography, [the practice of legal] killing of unborn children, and defending murderers
against capital punishment, the [Europe of] rap-music and hamburgers, the cult of
earning money at any cost and empty churches, contempt for national traditions and
developing preferences for the New Age, for sects and Judaism in Christianity, ‘children's
rights’ and parents deprived of power over their own children”. 34
The above-mentioned factors clearly had an impact on Polish public opinion:
public support for joining the EU fell from over 80 per cent in the early 1990s to no
more than 50-55 per cent in the year 2000. 35 Lower support was said to reflect very
diffuse motivations from more realistic cost-benefit analyses of membership, fear
of economic costs of enlargement, fear of loss of identity or national sovereignty, to
a rejection of the political elites in Poland who were consistently in favour of
membership. 36 With the prospect of enlargement getting closer, people gradually
31. H. KUBIAK, La rhétorique anti-européenne des partis politiques polonais. Le cas de Samoobrona
(Autodéfense) et de la Ligue des familles polonaises (LPR), in: J.-M. DE WAELE (ed.), La
Pologne et l'intégration européenne, éditions de l'Université de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, 2003.
32. E. NALEWAJKO, Le débat polonais sur l'intégration. Les partis politiques anti-européens et
leurs dirigeants, in: J.-M. DE WAELE (ed.), op.cit.
33. It should be mentioned that the threat of foreign models and ideas to weaken Polish traditions and
morals, leading to apostasy and a loss of national identity has been a recurring theme among
broader sectors of Poland’s population. J. JEDLICKI, op.cit.
34. Quoted in I. KRZEMIŃSKI, The National Identity and European Consciousness of Poles, in: P.
DRULAK (ed.), National and European Identities in EU Enlargement. Views from Central and
Eastern Europe, Institute of International Relations, Prague, p.64.
Such are the views of the religious right associated with the radical Catholic nationalist broadcaster
Radio Maryja. However, the Polish Catholic Church hierarchy has broadly endorsed EU
membership and in the run-up to the accession referendum exerted considerable pressure upon
Radio Maryja to tone down its rhetoric. The pope’s support for Polish accession was also made
clear on a number of occasions.
35. See CBOS opinion polls at www.cbos.pl/ENGLISH/cbos_en.htm.
36. L. KOLARSKA-BOBIŃSKA (ed.), Before the Great Change. Polish Public Opinion and EU
Enlargement, Institute of Public Affairs, Warsaw, 2001; A. SZCZERBIAK, Polish Public
Opinion: Explaining Declining Support for EU Membership, in: Journal of Common Market
Studies, 39:1(2001), pp.105-122.