Contenu du sommaire : La Pologne

The accession of Poland to the European Union in 2003 did not really represent a “return” since the Poles had in fact never abandoned the European scene. The article recalls the various manifestations of this continuous presence and the diverse attitudes of the rest of the continent toward it. After being a European exception in the sixteenth century, when it introduced a unique political system and covered the largest geographical area of the sub-continent after Russia, after being reduced to the tiny Duchy of Warsaw under Napoleon, after becoming a phoenix deploying its wings and its claws under Pilsudski after 1918, a ghost country during the Communist decades after 1945, a Goliath taking on the Soviet giant in 1980, Poland joined the European Union in 2003, with the wealth of experiences accumulated through its history and the energy drawn from the many ordeals suffered by its people.

The impact of economic transformations in Poland has been highly differentiated depending on the different professional sectors. While workers have suffered the brunt of industrial reorganization, farmers have better managed to stand their own. New social categories have emerged at the top of the social pyramid, given the growing importance of university degrees as main factors of upward mobility, or at the bottom of the pyramid with the poor, the unemployed, the disadvantaged. A greater flexibility of employment combined with the maintenance of certain traditions has produced a powerful dynamic of adaptation of Polish society.

Since 1989, Polish democracy has not been successful in consolidating its party system. This situation produces widespread popular dissatisfaction and shapes the views of the Polish population about democracy. The last elections show that Poland is in the throes of significant political re-alignment. For the first time, the ruling coalition includes the right wing extremists, nationalists, and opportunistic populists who reject the reform agenda, goals and strategies supported and implemented by all previous governments. This new coalition also seriously questions Polish commitments to the EU. Moreover, the newly formed governing coalition proposes a backward looking and parochial political agenda that may seriously endanger the process of modernization and Europeanization and the progress Poland has made during the last 15 years. In this essay, I argued that while post-communism is generally not a fertile ground for political parties and party politics, the consolidation of the party system in Poland has faced a number of challenges that were more serious than in other post-communist countries due to specific features of Polish political developments. For a variety of specific historical experiences and reasons, Poland has developed a highly idiosyncratic party system that is characterized by inherent instability, organizational weakness of political parties, growing tendency to political extremism and unpredictability. As a result, Polish politics promises to be a highly volatile enterprise for years to come with potentially serious consequences for the country's economic development and its standing within the European Union.

Is Poland undergoing a premature crisis of democracy? The article addresses this disturbing question and looks at its different dimensions: a crisis of confidence in the Parliament and in political parties; a growing distrust of political institutions, and a growing movement in favour of a strong government. All these elements tend to reinforce the idea of a crisis and form the background of the emergence of the populist forces.

This essay analyzes the process of the establishment of the rule of law in Poland, highlighting the limits and risks that restrain its achievements. In 1989, in Poland as in other Central and Eastern European countries, the fall of communism led to the inclusion of the rule of law in the constitutional order. While this principle was implemented immediately after its inclusion in the Constitution, the formation of its doctrinal and judicial basis is still in its initial stage. The rule of law is constantly threatened by the specific conditions of the transformation process: the settling of scores about the past, the weakness of the party system, the difficult economic transformations, the fragility of civil society, legislative weakness and populism. The more recent period, during which the risks have increased according to certain observers, represents a clear test for the strength of the state in Poland.

The function of religion in Poland, i.e. an indicator of the relationship with pluralism, has not been altered by the regime change that occurred in 1989. As a major indicator of the relation to diversity, religion remains, in its various contemporary functions, the most important space where the accommodation required by the rapid transformations of society are illustrated. This use of Catholicism to manage a multifaceted movement leads to interpret its various adjustments as aspects of the disenchantment of Poland.

At a time when it has many reasons to celebrate the great achievements of its post-communist transition, Poland is experiencing a political crisis whose social, economic and international consequences are difficult to measure. Since its return to power in the fall of 2005, the right has been questioning the transformation model followed so far. According to the right, after the 1989 “Round Table” negotiations, the leaders of the old regime, with the support of their allies, the moderates from Solidarnosc, have maintained a large part of their power. Together they have dominated the public administration, they have filled the key positions in the army, the police, the media and the economy, corrupting and weakening the state. Therefore the confrontation with the former communists and their allies represent a major stake for the radicals. What is at stake in this confrontation is not only a struggle to overcome the pathologies of the transformation process, but also the beginning of a real institutional and juridical revolution, together with a moral order founded upon a clear distinction between right and wrong, good and evil.

Given its geo-political situation, Poland has always had an “Eastern policy”. Conceived as an opposition to the “limited sovereignty” within the Soviet block, it has also rejected two traditional Polish stereotypes of Russia: either the obscure enemy of Poland and progress, or the liberator of the people. It has put forward a different configuration: the coexistence between a Russia having renounced its empire, and a Poland reconciled with its Ukrainian, Lithuanian and Byelorussian neighbors. Since 1989, all the governments have acted within this framework, seeking in particular to bring Ukraine closer to the European Union. However, this action has been limited by Vladimir Putin's new diplomacy, in particular his closer relationship with the United States since September 11, 2001, and by the strategic visions of the main EU member states. These limits were obvious in the fall of 2004, at the time of the “Orange revolution” in Ukraine, and more recently regarding the definition of Europe's energy policy.

At the beginning of the 1990s, German-Polish relations went ahead under the sign of reconciliation and the setting up of the basis for a good neighbors policy. Since the end of the decade, a clear shift seems to have occurred. Analyzing the evolution of German-Polish relations since 1989, this essay looks in particular at the way the past is used for political ends. In addition, it suggests placing these evolutions within the context of the negotiations for EU accession.

Among all the new members of the EU, Poland has been the most supportive of United States policies. The Iraq crisis has reinforced such a reductionist statement. The article first explains why Poland is so pro-American and then sets the limits of this attitude. Supporting American foreign policy, agreeing with the United States on a “politics of values”, does not necessarily mean agreeing with the economic and social “Anglo-Saxon” model. The time has come to give a more subtle image of Poland's position, which is both pro-American and pro-European, and to raise a number of questions regarding the evolution of the country beyond the phase of transition it has experienced between the collapse of the Soviet system and its accession to the European Union.