Woes of "back there" are right here now

Polish President’s death fuels mixed sentiments in Brussels

In the European Parliament, Polish grief has been all around these days. As a matter of bizarre coincidence, a memorial exhibition presenting unearthed mass-graves in Katyn was supplemented with photos of the high ranking Polish victims of the Smolensk plane crash. Otherwise rejoicing receptions of the EP get more solemn as some Poles with memorial pins arrive. Two days ago EP President Jerzy Buzek led a ceremony where Polish and other MEP’s, offices’ staff and visitors paid tribute to the victims. It was a moving event, even if most of the names were unknown for non-Polish fellows.

Still, not all of Brussels’s fine-boned technocrats sympathise with such a display of condolences.

In the EP’s canteen I happened to eavesdrop a conversation of quite a big bunch of MEP’s. Some of them I know enough to state that at least three different groups were 'represented' at that overly informal lunchtime-chat. One of these MEP’s has hinted that as tragic as it was, the president’s death wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) overwrite his gaffes and his bad fame in Brussels. The table seemed swift to find common ground along this claim. Arguments such as 'he was a Euro-sceptic trying to stop the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon', and 'he hated homosexuals' may have hit other ears around. On squelching some carefully put counter-arguments of a timid assistant, our representatives concluded that 'it’s fine back there in Poland. But here, we’re in Europe' – giving the latter word the tone of a fanfare.

Shortly: Jerzy Buzek should have kept his nation’s mourning out of the EP’s walls.

One thing some eurocrats tend to omit is that 'Europe' (i.e. the EU) remains an absurdly heterogeneous compound of nations and views. And although Mr Kaczynski was withholding his ink from the EU’s newest testament (the Lisbon Treaty) until its Irish approval, he did not balk the process as did its Czech counterpart, Vaclav Klaus. Still, he had his own view of Europe and of the role Poland deserved. He was not satisfied by the degree of influence (i.e. voting power) the new treaty guaranteed to his country which he considered to merit a bigger clout in Brussels. He was a stiff Atlanticist fearing (and irking) Russia, while hobbling reconciliation with it after the war in Georgia. Mr Kaczynski would raise many eyebrows at home and in Europe by his relentlessly rigid manner and his stubbornness to secure himself a seat on the Council meetings along with Polish PM Donald Tusk. He would take a line which was controversial (and sometimes scoffed at) in Poland as well as abroad. He was not a federalist. He was conservative and old-fashioned. But at the same time, he was the president of Poland, the far most important new member state of the EU.

Finally, he was not alone on that plane. Apart from his wife, the core leaders of the Polish national army and politics perished along with him. It is Poland’s citizens (or at least those 25 million beloved ’eurobscure’ Polish folks) to whom the EP paid tribute that day. Presidents come and go. Symbols last; especially 'here in Europe.'

Many EU officials should remake the order behind their facades and accept that the deeper the new treaties cut into states’ sovereignties (i.e.: the faster integration advances) the more frictions occur between them. Those who believe that all leaders should sign up automatically to an ever faster pace of pooling national powers do not understand democracy. Indeed, a 'united' Europe will also inherit the conflicts hitherto kept 'back there'. EU-staff is there to table proposals, not credos, and presidents’ reservation towards draft treaties may be seen as reflection instead of heresy.

However, the seamy side of the conventional European wisdom hardly gains publicity outside the EU institutions' canteens. If so, such claims get quenched by overwhelming official statements calling for compassion and unity.

Apart from some of its officials, Europe keeps valuing solidarity. These lunchtime discussions better remain ignored, stay deep in the jungle of European institutions groping for their place in a yet deeper jungle called The Treaty of Lisbon.