In the almost total media darkness, the elections in Poland upset the political balance of Eastern Europe. The overwhelming victory of the nationalist right, and in particular of Kaczynski's PIS, suddenly reopens the debate on Europe and its role in the global geopolitical context. Poland is the sixth country in the EU by population and although 46th in the world as per capita income (indexed by purchasing power) it represents a fundamental pawn for NATO, which it entered in 1999, 5 years before 'European Union.
The victory of the nationalist front must be framed under two major profiles. A historical and a more current one, tacked around the choices of Brussels.
At first glance, the future single-color nationalist government in Warsaw could suggest a resurgence of relations with Moscow. Despite the almost total ideological overlap with Orbán's Hungary, Poland deviates from Budapest precisely because of its policy towards Russia. If in an anti-European way Hungary explicitly winks at Putin, Poland seems to be hostage to a historical legacy that forces it to constantly renew liberation from its most powerful and inconvenient neighbor, Russia. In view of the fact that Germany to the west represents the other great specter of Polish history, we must ask ourselves what the most current impulses and needs of the new Polish leadership are: a foreign policy in open conflict with the EU and Germany; a chauvinist policy first of all wary of East.
Very likely that the answer is in the middle, indeed that it is a fusion of the two. Poland's membership of NATO, widely advocated by Washington at the time, was a significant part of the expansion of the American sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. From the Polish point of view, however, it represented more than anything else a revenge against the political destiny imposed by the Second World War which forced it to join the Pact (irony of History) of Warsaw. It is therefore more than legitimate to claim that entry into NATO for Poland was the endorsement of his newfound independence.
On the other hand, joining the European Union has represented an unmissable economic opportunity for Poland, a driving force for development and stability unparalleled in the continent. But in light of the October elections of 2015, the "return to the West" appears to be more linked to the consolidation of a dignified standard of living than to a full adherence of culture and customs. Precisely as a great Catholic reservoir of the East, Poland seems light years away from the current liberal European liberal routes.
Together with the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and the aforementioned Hungary, Poland represents the realization of a "new block" in European political balance. On the level of the ideal reference principles, it seems destined to become the leader of a push resistance front neoglobal of Brussels.
How will this be compatible with Warsaw's ever-green pro-euphoria?
The Polish armed forces, appreciated for their power, number and reliability, what role will they play in a system poised between the Alliance and a "splendid isolation" of nationalism?
The same guidelines of Kaczynski, giving cause of the future premier Beata Szydlo, do not dissolve the doubt: "Yes to NATO, but the national military industry remains privileged".
Multiple reasons related to the continental geopolitics of the last 20 years have in fact equated NATO with an operational arm of European foreign policy. Even where conflicting ideological findings have emerged (the 2011 war in Libya for example), credible alternatives for military aggregations in Europe do not seem to exist at the moment. In this context, how will Poland move? The balance between the Atlantic Pact, anti-European nationalist anti-Germanism and Russophobia is very delicate.
It is probable that Poland, destined in the coming years to the inevitable ostracism of the Europeanist oligarchies, will become in the future a model for the aspiring regional powers that are unable to passively support any sort of community policy. The remarkable distance of Warsaw from the EU in terms of immigration could become a reference for many neighboring countries.
Despite the official declarations and government programs on the subject of foreign policy, it is therefore difficult to imagine a total flattening of Warsaw to the medium and long-term Atlantic strategic objectives. The more Poland will distinguish from the European Union, the more its accession to NATO will become sui generis. It cannot be excluded that the same hostile policy towards Russia, patron of all the continent's anti-Europeans, may be affected. Relations with Orbán's Hungary in this regard will be decisive. The new Cold War climate in the Baltic and Ukraine will be the test of the near future.
(photo: Wojsko Polskie)
[read also: "Hungary, the mobile frontier of Europe"]
