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Germany and EU become targets in Poland’s election

Polish opposition leader Donald Tusk's EU past has come back to haunt him. Credit: Getty

September 14, 2023 - 7:00am

Poland’s general election on 15 October is seen by many as a battle for the nation’s soul and right now, it’s anyone’s guess who will emerge victorious. Going head-to-head are the leader of the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) Jarosław Kaczyński and the leader of the opposition Donald Tusk, a former prime minister and ex-European Council president. 

As campaigning grows increasingly bitter, Tusk’s past is leaving him open to attack as an alleged German stooge and enemy of Polish sovereignty, as PiS bets on playing up threats to national sovereignty in the run-up to the vote. 

The latest in a long line of attacks by PiS is an ad which portrays Tusk as keen to sell out Poland to German interests. The ad draws on claims that his decision to raise the retirement age while previously prime minister was taken under orders from Berlin. It shows Kaczyński receiving a fictitious call from the German Embassy demanding that the retirement age be “the same as it was under Mr. Tusk” (PiS reversed Tusk’s raising of the retirement age), to which the party leader replies “Mr. Tusk is not here anymore and those habits are finished.”  

The ad encapsulates PiS’s electoral strategy: combining its favourite pastime Tusk-bashing with its attempts to awaken deep-rooted anti-German sentiments. A year ago, the party launched a campaign to extract $1.3 trillion in reparations from Germany for losses inflicted during the Second World War, with Germany insisting that the matter of reparations is closed. PiS said Berlin was setting “a perfect example for Russia on how to behave as regards Ukraine”.  

It may seem illogical for Warsaw to devote so much energy to attacking a key ally, yet attempting to convince the Polish public that they are in fact hemmed in by hostile superpowers for whom Tusk is a servant not just Russia but also Germany and, by extension, the EU is the key ingredient in PiS’s electoral campaign.  

Despite Germany’s U-turn on relations with Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine, Kaczyński has continued to warn of a “German-Russian plan to rule over Europe”. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has meanwhile claimed that “Tusk, an envoy of the Brussels elites,” will “demolish Poland’s security”.  

The party has put the spotlight on Tusk’s roles in the heyday of Russian economic cooperation with Germany and the EU during the previous decade. Indeed, a move to institute a committee investigating past “Russian influence” in Poland has been nicknamed “Lex Tusk” by opponents due to concerns that it will be used to discredit PiS’s arch opponent. 

And while implicating him in the Russian-German tandem which fostered Europe-wide dependency on Russian gas, Tusk’s EU past also allows him to be linked with supposedly sinister designs now being hatched by Brussels bureaucrats to enforce conformity among member states. 

PiS portrays its various legal battles with Brussels as a noble attempt to preserve national sovereignty even at the cost of heavy fines. In this context, Tusk’s promise to secure the release of withheld EU funding on his first day in office will come across to many PiS supporters as a promise to wave a white flag. 

By linking Tusk with a triumvirate of supposedly hostile powers in Moscow, Berlin and Brussels, PiS has positioned itself as the party that protects Polish sovereignty from threats to the east and west. Kaczyński is trying every trick in the book to ram this message home and to persuade voters that, when it comes to next month’s crunch elections, only one party truly has Polish interests at heart. 


William Nattrass is a British journalist based in Prague and news editor of Expats.cz

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Lukasz Gregorczyk
Lukasz Gregorczyk
1 year ago

I think there is this but there also is the LGBTQ and climate change lobby that is hard at work in Poland and that also defines the battle lines.

Paul Curtin
Paul Curtin
1 year ago

The reason he is portrayed as a German / Brussels stooge is…
Because he is a German / Brussels stooge

David McKee
David McKee
1 year ago

Poland is fascinating. The Polish people have lived in the heart of Europe, surrounded by powerful and frequently unfriendly neighbours. They have been invaded and fought over repeatedly, and yet they have survived. This is in stark contrast to the United States, which was in no danger whatsoever of invasion for nearly two centuries, protected as it was by the Royal Navy.
Moreover, they have never sat around, waiting to be rescued. As I recall from my reading of Christopher Andrew’s ‘Mitrokhin Archive’, the Polish people freed themselves from Soviet rule, and their example inspired all of Central Europe to get its freedom.
So should we worry too much about anti-German sentiment? I suspect it more rhetorical than real. It resonates with the Polish people, who have learned the hard way to distrust its neighbours.

Jim Haggerty
Jim Haggerty
1 year ago
Reply to  David McKee

Protected by the Royal Navy? Come again? maybe slightly before WW2 but certainly not afterward and the USA is protecting the UK now..

David McKee
David McKee
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Haggerty

Slightly before WW2? _Entirely_ before WW2. This is the only reason that the US could get away with minimal armed forces from independence to WW2 (the Civil War, WW1 and Theodore Roosevelt’s warship-building programme aside).
The point is that for nearly all its history, the greatest threat to Americans has been other Americans. For the Poles, internal disunity has been suppressed because of the fear of invasion. It’s why the Poles tolerate far more ruthlessness in their leaders than you or I would.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
1 year ago
Reply to  David McKee

You omitted to mention that we the British, did sack Washington DC in the summer of 1814 and also raided the US coastline with impunity.
Off course we were really ‘protecting’ them for their own good.

Last edited 1 year ago by Charles Stanhope
Rob N
Rob N
1 year ago

Seems a very odd article trying to imply the PiS are lying in saying Tusk is a German/EU stooge. He so clearly is that it would be very odd if PiS did not point it out.

Andrew Boughton
Andrew Boughton
1 year ago

This is our democratic system at its best. Hitler wrote of Nazism that it was almost scientifically guaranteed to succeed, because it rested on ‘every major human weakness’. And he was duly elected. We see today that democracy can be as much a threat to peace as authoritarian systems, when democratic contenders are driven to out-compete their rivals at the extremes and, in a feedback loop with the media, drive the people into hysteria. Our governments are becoming circuses.

Last edited 1 year ago by Andrew Boughton
Andrew Boughton
Andrew Boughton
1 year ago

In the current febrile atmosphere, our democracies have descended in circuses.

Noel Chiappa
Noel Chiappa
1 year ago

Politicians will tell any lie they can dream up in an attempt to win an election, and gain power. Colour me shocked.
The real problem is not the politicians, though; it’s the voters who believe this bilge. Adlai Stevenson had it right; “In a democracy, people get the government they deserve.” Although Churchill might be right…