Poland is changing.
Every year the country celebrates its national Independence Day in the capital, Warsaw.
There are parades and speeches But in 2017, Poland’s Independence Day made
worldwide news because of these signs:
60,000 people showed up for a march led by Nationalist and white-supremacist groups.
That’s because they have reason to celebrate, too.
Poland’s right-wing political party, PiS, is in power.
After winning the Presidency and a majority in Parliament, they've ignored the constitution,
Taken over the courts, purged the military, and cracked down on the media.
PiS is bringing authoritarianism back to Poland and
openly rebelling against the European Union.
It’s a shocking turn for a country that, just a few years ago was hailed as one of
Europe’s most promising young democracies.
So, how did this happen?
And can it be stopped?
It was an old story to the Polish population - conquest, subjugation, enslavement.
it had happened before in Poland’s troubled history but never with such inhumanity
Poland had a traumatic 20th century.
It was invaded twice during World War Two.
First by the Germans and then by the Soviets... ...who re-established the country after the
war, but as a communist state under their control.
In fact, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin directly contributed to a draft of Poland's constitution,
which was formalized in 1952.
These are his handwritten notes.
For the next several decades, Poland developed very little while it was cut off from the
rest of the world.
It became one of several Soviet-backed, communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe that
made up the Soviet bloc.
That started to change in the 1980s.
Polish unions started organizing huge strikes against the communist government.
The movement came to be called Solidarity and it grabbed the attention of
the world.
In 1989, the communist government caved to the pressure and agreed to let non-communist
parties run in the elections.
Solidarity and democratic candidates went on to win the majority of parliament and the
presidency.
They established the Republic of Poland and became the first country in Europe to topple
communism.
The rest of the Soviet bloc soon followed.
This posed a challenge for Western Europe.
We cannot aim at anything less than the union of Europe as a whole and we look with confidence
for the day that union is achieved
Since the end of World War Two, the continent’s democracies had been growing closer; signing
free trade deals that became the precursor to today’s European Union.
At first, the trade deals just covered coal and steel, but as they grew to include agriculture,
energy, and other markets, more countries joined-- making Europe more economically and
politically integrated than it had ever been before.
As the former Soviet bloc countries started establishing democracies of their own; Western
Europe needed to find a way to include them.
So in 1993, the established EU countries came up with a strict checklist for admitting new
members.
New member-states needed to have a free market economy, respect human rights and the rule
of law.
Meaning courts had to be independent and impartial-- so everyone could get a fair trial.
These EU rules helped bring former-communist countries in while also keeping them from
sliding back into authoritarianism.
They were designed to keep the peace in Europe.
Poland joined the EU in 2004 and because of Solidarity's success it became one of the
most promising new member.
Poland was given more money than any other EU country which it used to build highways,
schools, hospitals, and modern infrastructure.
The country’s economy grew more than any other ex-communist country.
Each year after it joined, Poland received millions of Euros to help fund highways, schools,
hospitals, and modern infrastructure.
By 2014, Poland became one of the EU’s strongest and most resilient members.
It even avoided the recession in 2009 that crippled economies worldwide.
Polling showed 72% of Poles were satisfied with EU membership.
More than any other member state.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski: “Ladies & Gentleman, 10 years ago we joined
the European Union.
We did not become part of the EU on a whim.
We became part of the union because we put in tremendous efforts to build a democracy
and a free market economy; two pillars of a united Europe.”
And Poland’s charismatic, pro-EU Prime minister, Donald Tusk, was chosen to become president
of the EU’s European Council.
But in his absence, leaders with a very different vision for Poland's future rose to power.
In 2015 PiS, Poland’s right-wing party, shocked the world and won an absolute majority
in the parliament.
Since 2001, PiS had been led by former-Solidarity leaders Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who felt
that Poland’s center-left parties had become elitist and corrupt.
It appealed to Poland’s conservative population in rural areas.
PiS only earned 38% of the vote in 2015, on par with the previous election results, but
after Tusk left for the EU, his coalition of center-left parties fell apart, making
room for the right-wing party to take over.h
According to PiS, after decades of Soviet control, Poland was now being controlled by
the EU.
So when it came into power, it pledged to take back Poland’s independence … legally
or illegally.
The party already controlled BOTH HOUSE OF Parliament and the Presidency, so it initiated
a hostile takeover of the judicial branch.
First it packed this Constitutional court with loyal judges and then forced out more
than a third of the judges in this other court.
Both acts were illegal under the Polish constitution, but the PiS-majority parliament and Presidency
signed them into law anyway.
The party also fired over 11,000 civil-service workers and at least 280 military officers,
calling them ex-communists.
It cracked down on the media.
It started leveling fines on news organizations when it didn’t like their coverage.
Meanwhile, it’s been using Polish nationalism to justify these moves.
Remember this 2017 controversial march?
A PiS politician called it “a beautiful site”
While the party cracked down on protests against their authoritarian moves.
As PiS tightened its grip on Poland, the EU issued several warnings to stop it from breaking
its rules….
But PiS ignored them.
“It is with a heavy heart that we have decided to initiate Article 7.1”, “But the facts
leave us with no choice.”
In December 2017, the EU invoked Article 7-- its nuclear option-- for the first time in
its history.
It allows the EU to strip a member of its voting rights if it feels it is breaking the
criteria it established in 1993.
// a significant number of laws have been adopted… which put at serious risk the independence
of the judiciary and separation of powers, in Poland//.
According to the EU, the PiS purging of the courts violates the country’s commitment
to respecting the rule of law.
The problem for the EU is that Article 7 is not going to work.
The punishment requires a unanimous vote by all EU countries -- and there is one country
that has sworn to protect Poland...
Hungary, another former Soviet bloc country, has taken a turn towards authoritarianism
under President Viktor Orban.
And he vowed to veto any punishment against Poland.
So PiS continues to systematically strip… on Poland while still receiving huge sums
of money from the EU.
It’s proving that a member country can stay in the EU, reap its economic benefits, while
ignoring its rules on rule of law.
PiS is proving that it's possible to reap the economic benefits of EU membership while
flouting the rule of law.
And that has sparked an existential crisis for the EU...
The rules that were written to prevent authoritarianism from ever re-appearing in Europe, aren’t
being followed, and there’s not much it can do about it.
The EU could try cutting off Poland’s funding but it’s unclear how that would work.
So for now, the EU remains in a crisis.
For decades it’s tried to keep Europe democratic.
But Poland, once the EU’s most promising new addition, is
Is now threatening to unravel the whole thing.