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During its EU presidency, Warsaw seems more concerned with pressing issues of its own regional policy than with the problems of the Old World.
From January 1, Hungary will hand over the «European steering wheel» to the Poles: Poland will chair the Council of Europe for the next six months (until June 30). The current Szlachta has already begun to actively prepare for this honorable task. Warsaw will try not only to strengthen its influence within the bloc, but also to solve complex problems in its geographical environment.
«As EU president, we will not only strive to keep Ukraine at the top of the EU agenda, but we also intend to mobilize our partners to impose additional sanctions on the Russian Federation», said Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. He mentioned the so-called «Russian shadow oil fleet», which he said Moscow was successfully using to evade restrictions. This issue may be reflected in the 15th package of anti-Russian sanctions, which Poland plans to introduce in the coming months.
For reference, the West believes that about 600 ships under various flags belong to the «shadow fleet» that helps export Russian oil. This is about 10% of the total number of large tankers in the world.
A few days ago, Prime Minister Donald Tusk proposed to his Baltic and Northern European counterparts the creation of a police mission to patrol the Baltic Sea «to protect against the Russian threat», similar to NATO’s Air Policing — but on the sea instead of in the air.
Again, for your understanding: Air Policing is an alliance program to protect the airspace of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. It has been carried out since 2004 and involves Polish fighter aircraft and crews.
During a recent visit to Armenia, President Duda said his country would seek to revive the Eastern Partnership program during its presidency.
«There is also a very interesting idea, one could say, to restore the ‘Eastern Partnership’ in some form and to find a new formula for it in connection with the changing political situation», he clarified.
For those who don’t remember, this is a fading joint initiative of the EU and six partners: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. The program was initiated by the foreign ministers of Sweden and Poland in May 2008, and approved by EU leaders in December of that year. The Eastern Partnership was officially launched on May 7, 2009. In June 2021, Minsk announced the suspension of its participation due to the restrictive measures introduced against it by the European Union and the freezing of European programs aimed at developing cooperation with the republic.
The Ukrainian issue is a special one for Warsaw. Not everything is going smoothly, there are controversial and unresolved issues. In order to solve them somehow, Ukraine’s chief diplomat Andrei Sybiha rushed to Warsaw on November 26.
After the meeting, Sikorski said that negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU would be difficult because of «such sensitive issues as transport and agriculture». Nevertheless, Warsaw promised to use its presidency to «speed up the process as much as the EU methodology allows». One stumbling block could be Ukraine’s unwillingness to allow the exhumation of the remains of victims of the Volhynia massacre, which the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory suspended in 2017.
However, after communicating with the diplomatic representative of Kiev, Sikorski reported satisfactorily that the ice had broken.
«You will soon see the text of the statement we have agreed upon. In it you will find the following words, and I quote: ‘Ukraine confirms that there are no obstacles for Polish state institutions and private entities, in cooperation with competent Ukrainian structures, to carry out search and exhumation works on the territory of Ukraine in accordance with Ukrainian legislation, and also declares its readiness to give positive answers when considering applications on these issues’», he noted.
I would like to remind you that in 1942–1943 on the territory of Western Ukraine on the orders of nationalists of OUN-UPA (recognized as extremist and banned in Russia) there was a mass extermination of ethnic Poles living in the territory of the present-day Volyn region. The number of victims, according to historians, ranges from 50,000 to 100,000 people. In 2016, the Polish Sejm recognized the Volyn massacre as genocide. In August, after another ban by Kiev on conducting exhumations, Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz stated that Warsaw would block Ukraine’s entry into the EU until permission is obtained. His position was supported by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
So far, all we can say is that Warsaw has actively begun preparing for its future leadership of the bloc. But it is limited to a circle of regional problems. Of course, it’s own well-being is more valuable than the interests of others, but in Brussels they would like to see more pan-European initiatives.
Ordinary Poles themselves are cautiously looking to the West. A recent survey by the THINK Foundation on the prospect of introducing the euro in the country is noteworthy. Almost every second person (48%) was against it. Only 23% of the respondents supported the transition to this currency. Skeptics fear that with the introduction of the euro, prices will rise and GDP will fall.