‘Polexit’ Sign Appears at End of Long Corridor

A few weeks later, after a successful European Council summit, which agreed a compromise solution over the rule-of-law conditionality that EU institutions want to impose on EU funds, Morawiecki was hailing it as a victory for Poland: "Thank you [Hungarian Prime Minister] Viktor Orban for our cooperation for the best budget for Poland and the fight to keep the agreed conditions."

One could simply shrug off the about-face of the Polish premier as negotiation tactics. But if the last few weeks have shown us anything, it is that while the budgetary veto might have been tactical for Viktor Orban, it was strategic for the Polish leadership.

Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (L) and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (R) chat at the start of a two days face-to-face EU summit, in Brussels, Belgium, 10 December 2020. EPA-EFE/OLIVIER HOSLET Polonise, not colonise

Poland's real leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the president of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, said in an October interview: "Today, we are witnessing an attempt to take away our sovereignty… The EU institutions, their various officials and politicians who have never been elected by Poles, they demand we reassess our entire culture, to deny everything that is dearest to us, because they say so."

The PiS leader even went so far as to accuse the EU of being worse than the Soviet Union, because under communism Poland was at least partially independent, but now the EU wants to get rid of Polish independence altogether and "colonise" it: "We will defend our identity, our freedom, our sovereignty at all costs. We will not be terrorised with money; our response to those actions is a clear 'No'."

These remarks show the true colours of the PiS leadership....