journal of european integration history revue d'histoire de l ...

16
Ania Krok-Paszkowska and Jan Zielonka
became aware of the less attractive conditions of EU membership and the price
they may have to pay for it. They worried about the cost of the rapid adoption of
EU technical, social and environmental standards. Voters wanted to know the
concrete reasons why they should join and what they would get out of it. The elites
in favour of joining the Union were faced with a tough test of their policy: on June
7-8th, 2003 the Poles were asked to support the EU accession in a referendum. The
results of the referendum represented an enormous and largely unexpected victory
for the friends of Europeanization: 77.45 per cent voted in favour of EU
membership and only 22.55 per cent against, with a relatively high turnout of 58.85
per cent. How can one explain these rather surprising results?
On the eve of the accession referendum there was a massive and determined
pro-European campaign led by a broad coalition of political parties from centre-left
to centre-right. Poland’s widely respected president Alexander Kwaśniewski
campaigned vigorously in favour of the “yes” vote and helped the embattled
coalition-government led by Leszek Miller to present the case in terms of national
rather than merely party interests.
However, weaknesses in the anti-European campaign have probably shaped the
outcome of the referendum in a crucial manner. Parties engaged in the “no”
campaign clearly failed to receive significant backing from their own electorate. A
large proportion of people who voted for Eurosceptic parties such as the League of
Polish Families and Self-Defence in the 2001 parliamentary elections, voted in
favour of accession in the EU referendum (35% and 50% of supporters
respectively). 37 The problem lay not in the lack of political mobilisation. In fact,
the “no” campaign was well-organised and quite vocal. The problem was in the
credibility and legitimacy of its claim. For instance, references to Christian values
were often used in the anti-European rhetoric. However, the greatest authority
among the Christian electorate, pope John Paul II, has strongly supported Poland’s
membership in the EU. In a speech a few weeks before the accession referendum
was held, the pope stressed that Poland had always been an important part of
Europe. He acknowledged that many people were concerned that the country’s
religious and cultural identity could be compromised, and that the economic
disparity was large, but he argued that Poland could not abandon the EU which
constituted a family of nations based on a common Christian heritage. 38
37. The Institute of Public Affairs (Instytut Spraw Publicznych) gives a Polish view on various aspects
of Poland’s accession to the EU, the shape of an enlarged EU as well as publishing analyses on
specific aspects of EU policy. Most are in Polish, but some have been written in English or have
English-language summaries. See www.isp.org.pl/indexEN.htm.
38. The pope has called on political leaders and citizens in the EU to place greater emphasis on the
spiritual dimension of Europe. Political parties such as Law and Justice (PiS) share this view and
are unhappy about the lack of any reference to Christianity or Christian values in the preamble of
the draft EU constitution. See also H. SUCHOCKA, Jaka konstytucja dla rozszerzającej się
Europy, in: E. POPŁAWSKA (ed.), Konstytucja dla rozszerzającej się Europy, Instytut Spraw
Publicznych, Warszawa, 2000.