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Vadim Trukhachev

Professor of Foreign Regions Chair at Russian State University for Humanities, Expert on history of CEE countries

There has been a huge political scandal in Poland. Nine top officials, including the Marshal of the Sejm, Radosław Sikorski, have all resigned their posts. Apparently different people will soon be determining the country’s policy. And relations with Russia might improve, although the opposite is more likely.

There has been a huge political scandal in Poland. Nine top officials, including the Marshal of the Sejm, Radosław Sikorski, have all resigned their posts. Apparently different people will soon be determining the country’s policy. And relations with Russia might improve, although the opposite is more likely.

A real political bomb exploded in Poland late last week. For the past 12 months, the weekly Wprost has been publishing records of talks between top officials, resulting in nine of them being forced to resign, all at once, in the midst of a scandal.

The best known of these politicians outside of Poland is, of course, Marshal of the Sejm, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of National Defence Radosław Sikorski. The following have also resigned: Minister of Health Bartosz Arłukowicz, Minister of Sport and Tourism Andrzej Biernat, Minister of the State Treasury Włodzimierz Karpiński, Chief of the Chancellery Jacek Cichocki, Head of the Prime Minister’s group of counsellors Jacek Rostowski and three other deputy ministers.

The story has been dragging on for over a year. It all began when Wprost published a record of a discussion between the head of the National Bank of Poland, former Prime Minister Marek Belka and Minister of the Interior Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz. Belka offered to help the government if the Minister of Finance Jacek Rostowski resigned. Yet, according to European Union rules, national banks are not entitled to interfere in politics.

This scandal would hardly have spread beyond Poland, however, if Sikorski had not become involved. It turned out that, in June 2014, a waiter secretly recorded his conversation with Rostowski. As Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sikorski said that Poland’s alliance with the United States was “harmful, because it gives a false sense of security,” he said, adding “we will have disagreements with Germany and Russia because we are supporting the Americans.”

It was more than strange to hear such opinions from Sikorski. As Minister of National Defence and then Minister of Foreign Affairs, he had shown himself to be a consistent supporter of strengthening ties with the United States. He strongly advocated the deployment of elements of the American missile defence system in Poland, and then supported having the U.S. military on Polish territory on a permanent basis. Sikorski was never very complimentary about Russia and recently insisted on harsher anti-Russian sanctions in connection with the events in Ukraine.

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In 2014, talkative officials insisted on a vote of no confidence in Donald Tusk’s government – a vote that he survived. In the autumn, Tusk moved over to be President of the European Council and Sikorski took his place at the head of the Sejm. Ewa Kopacz was appointed Prime Minister and similarly scandal-ridden Grzegorz Schetyna (we are talking specifically about his insistence that Auschwitz was liberated by Ukrainians only) was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. They all represented the ruling liberal-conservative Civic Platform party.

In any other situation, one might expect Kopacz and the entire government to be the next victims. But there is not practical sense in the government resigning early. Parliamentary elections are scheduled for October 2015 anyway, after which the country will get a new cabinet. Most likely, the nine ministers decided not to harm their political careers, which had not been going so well recently.

In May 2015, representative of the Civic Platform Bronisław Komorowski lost in the presidential elections to Andrzej Duda of the ultra-conservative Law and Justice party. A public opinion survey conducted in June 2015 showed that supporters of the new president can count on 25 per cent of the votes, while the current ruling party can only expect to get 17 per cent. Unless the situation changes, those involved in the current scandal can at best expect to be part the opposition.

However, while Poland’s internal politics are on the boil, externally everything remains unchanged. The country continues to invite U.S. military. “Talks are under way on the deployment in Poland of stocks of U.S. army equipment. This is another step towards increasing the United States’ presence in Poland and the region,” Polish Minister of National Defence Tomasz Siemoniak said a few days ago. Considering that Polish politicians regularly call Russia a threat to security, it is clear why this country with 38 million inhabitants needs protection from across the Atlantic.

This current scandal is unlikely to benefit Russia. Although the Civic Platform members could hardly be called loyal to Russia, the Law and Justice party apparently holds even more radical views. President Duda looks up to the Kaczyński brothers (Lech and Jaroslaw), who were famed for their constant attacks on Russia. The new President insisted on providing Ukraine with military assistance, but Sikorski did not agree.

It is often written in Poland today that under Komorowski, Tusk and Sikorski, Warsaw was more like Frankfurt on the Vistula; under Duda, it will be like Warsaw on the Potomac. What this means is that the main partner of the Civic Platform was Germany, whereas the country is now completely orientated towards the United States. If Duda does actually begin copying Lech Kaczyński’s policy, these words will prove true. And the policy of having U.S. military in the country will not change.

Considering that the Civic Platform was steeped in scandal, there is a very good chance that President Duda’s head of government will be a colleague from the Law and Justice party, perhaps even Jarosław Kaczyński. And then Russian–Polish relations of 2014–2015 will seem not so bad.

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