Poland's raison d'etat

Mr. Speaker, Honorable Members!

In the exposé by Minister Sikorski, much heralded for several weeks now, we heard a lot of generalities, truisms, and exercises in wishful thinking.

I would say one could even agree with some of them, were it not for the fact that they tell us nothing about the actual state of this Government's foreign policy. However, the international situation surrounding Poland and the scale of the challenges and threats facing the Republic of Poland require not a journalistic take, but a highly serious, substantive approach to the policy for which Minister Sikorski is constitutionally responsible.

I will therefore begin with some obvious truths, which in such circumstances need systematic ordering. The objective of our foreign policy must be the Polish raison d'état, that is, the continuation and survival of the Republic of Poland, in prosperity and continued development, as a sovereign state, independently deciding our domestic and foreign policy in all spheres. Anticipating any potential polemics, I should immediately state that the sovereignty of a nation-state is not only feasible but also, I am convinced of this, desirable in today's world, provided it is not mistakenly equated with omnipotence, but grounded in independent decision-making.

The Polish raison d'état determines five fundamental imperatives of our foreign policy, which are:

• firstly, to prevent Russia from imperial expansion;
• secondly, to prevent Germany from dominating or even vassalizing Poland;
• thirdly, to counteract the resumption of German-Russian cooperation;
• fourthly, to counteract the displacement of the United States from its role as the main stabilizer of security of our continent;
• and finally fifthly, to build a regional structure of close cooperation between countries threatened by Russia, strong enough to defend their independence with the support of the United States.

The criterion of foreign policy success for the current Governments is therefore results of meeting these imperatives.

• How is the first imperative, i.e. preventing Russia from imperial expansion, which today constitutes a real and – we agree – existential threat to Poland, achieved?

Relying primarily on our own defense capabilities, we recognize that in this task our strongest, most reliable, and absolutely irreplaceable ally is the United States. Only the United States possesses the real potential to both deter and contain Russia. This begs the question: what Polish interest is served by the role of leading critics of the US policy: the Polish Prime Minister, the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, and most recently, the Speaker of the Sejm.

Is the current US administration's imposition of effective sanctions on Russia and the undermining or dismantling of Russia's allies' rule in various parts of the world contrary to Poland's interests? Is the Foreign Minister's commitment, recently confirmed, to an American presence in Europe and particularly in Poland, inconsistent with the vital interests of the Republic of Poland?

In short, the current Government's policy towards the United States does not serve the Polish interests.

• Let's move on to the second imperative of Polish foreign policy: preventing Germany from dominating or even vassalizing Poland. The current Government's attitude toward Germany precludes subjectivity. One of the many clear items of evidence of this state of affairs is the Government's abandonment of any efforts to obtain compensation for Poland for the wrongs and damage inflicted by the German aggression and occupation in the years 1939 to 1945.

The lack of Poland's subjectivity is now widely visible in our relations with the European Union, whose institutions, in the process of accelerated integration, pursue Germany's, and partially France's, interests, the interests of domination and subjugation of the entire European Union. Accordingly, the concept of a strong European Union, ostentatiously and affirmatively used by the Government, today signifies a massive transfer of sovereignty from the governments and national Parliaments of the Member States to the central EU institutions

Since 2019, a German-French program of centralization of the EU has been underway. As a result, over 60 substantive areas, where decisions had had previously to be made unanimously, are to be subjected to majority vote procedures, in which the more populous 'core states' of the Union have an overwhelming advantage over the demographically small states of the Eastern flank of the EU, among which Poland is the only large one. These substantive areas also include common European foreign and security policy.

Let us ask a question, a rhetorical question: Doesn't the abolition of the unanimity rule open the way to ignoring the opposition of the EU's eastern flank in the event that the EU's core powers, ie. Germany with the support of France, decide to resume the 'reset' policy with Russia, which is something Moscow undoubtedly wants?

Or an even more specific question: Could Poland, faced with a situation similar to that of February 24, 2022, immediately decide to support the victim of aggression with arms supplies, and could its highest ranking representatives, as the Chairman of the then ruling party Jarosław Kaczyński and the Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki did, travel to the capital of the attacked country, organizing a 'coalition of the willing', or would it have to wait for a result of majority vote in Brussels, and therefore effectively for the consent of Berlin supported by Paris?

Or an even more specific question: Could Poland, faced with a situation similar to that of February 24, 2022, immediately decide to support the victim of aggression with arms supplies, and could its highest-ranking representatives go – as President Jarosław Kaczyński and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki did – to the capital of the attacked country, organizing a coalition of the willing, or would it have to wait for the result of a majority vote in Brussels, and therefore effectively for the consent of Berlin supported by Paris?

Of course, the Minister, let alone the Prime Minister, would deny the validity of such questions, arguing for the agency of Polish EU policy. But unfortunately, we experience this agency almost daily. Suffice it to recall that when the German chancellor, the president of France, and the prime minister of the non-EU member the United Kingdom were discussing a peace program for Ukraine in Geneva, the Polish prime minister demonstrated his international agency at an African Union forum, although its influence on the situation in our region remains unknown.

There are, of course, many more examples of similar agencies. I'll focus on just one, but I believe it's a very telling one: the agency surrounding the European Union-Mercosur agreement, which will result in the collapse of Polish agriculture sponsoring the exports of German cars. To sum up – it is difficult to find reference to Polish interests in the EU policy of the current Government, while the German interests are always visible with the naked eye.

• Let's move on to the third imperative of Polish foreign policy: preventing resumption of the German-Russian cooperation. It's important to remember that the European Union's strategic partnership with Russia was the primary aspiration of the EU's main powers from 1991 until at least 2023, and subsequent declarations of toughness and rigid stance towards Russia cannot change these facts.

Considering all the EU partnership initiatives with Russia in recent decades, which I have no time to cite here, not to mention the centuries-old examples of strategic German-Russian cooperation at the expense of the existential interests of Poles and other nations in our region, one must ask: What safeguards against a repetition of such cooperation attempts is the current Government prepared to implement?

How does the Government or its Ministry of Foreign Affairs envision Poland's reaction, if a majority vote in the European Union approves a 'reset' policy with Russia? How do they envision Poland's reaction, as a consequence of such a reset, to, for example, renewed Russian demands for transit corridor from Belarus to Königsberg via Poland or Lithuania? After all, Russia had already made such demands during Poland's negotiations on accession to the European Union. As we remember, President Jacques Chirac promised Putin in Sochi in 2002 that he would honor his wishes regarding precisely such transit. Back then, Moscow was unable to back up its demands with military blackmail. Today it is. Poland could have refused at the time, without subjecting our decision to a majority vote in Brussels.

What will the future hold? Berlin's current declarations of disappointment with Russia don't invalidate the validity of such questions. How durable and credible are these declarations? The ancient Romans used to say: facta non verba. So has Germany already dismantled the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines? No, not yet? So what are they waiting for? To sum up: in the policy of the current Government there is no trace of action, or even reflection, that could not prevent, or predict the threat that emerges in virtually every generation of the Poles from the joint anti-Polish actions of Germany and Russia.

• Let us move on to the fourth imperative, namely, counteracting the displacement of the United States from its role as the main stabilizer of the military security on our continent.
Attempts to replace the United States in this role with an illusory European military force that does not exist and has no chance of being created on a significant scale in the foreseeable future, are particularly dangerous for Poland and the entire eastern flank of NATO. The Minister's public musings on establishing a European Legion should be categorized as farcical, as such a legion could, at best, solve operational problems of disciplining tribal militias in Sub-Saharan Africa. The most telling example of the European forces' real deterrence against Russia is the Bundeswehr's recent charter of a private Polish plane to transport 15 soldiers to Greenland, where they remained for three days.

However, the EU SAFE program, celebrated by the current Government, is extremely dangerous. As Jacek Saryusz-Wolski put it, it is effectively a double nelson hold on the Republic of Poland's defense capabilities.

Firstly, aside from the fact that this is a gigantic loan requiring repayment over four decades, and the offer, as we know, is by no means satisfactory to everyone – for example, Germany won't take it up  – it forces Poland to abandon its current defense equipment purchases from our principal ally, the United States, and its secondary ally, South Korea. It mandates purchases of equipment from Germany and France, making the Polish arms industry dependent on components from these countries.

Secondly, the disbursement of funds from the program may be suspended in accordance with the 'conditionality mechanism' which, as you well know, can be imposed by the EU not only for technical or financial reasons, but also on the basis of the EU assessment, or should I say recidivism of the assessment, of the 'state of the rule of law' in Poland

To sum up: the policy of the current Government shows not only submissive but outright enthusiastic actions aimed at pushing the United States out of its role as the main military stabilizer of security of our continent. This clearly constitutes a prioritization of German interests over the interests of Poland.

• Let us finally move on to the fifth imperative of Polish foreign policy, namely the construction of a regional structure of close cooperation between countries threatened by Russia, strong enough to defend their independence with support of the United States.

Such a structure should assume ever-closer cooperation between Poland and the Baltic and Scandinavian states – here I agree with the minister – but also with Ukraine, which, alongside Poland, possesses a credible military potential in the region. In this context, relations with our Trilogy trilateral cooperation format allies, Turkey and Romania, are also important. But let's not forget the numerous common interests that link Poland with our partners in the Visegrad Group. Given the diversity, and sometimes even some conflicting interests,within this group, cooperation with them requires particularly intensive, I would even say sophisticated diplomacy, to which, however, there exists no alternative from the viewpoint of the Polish raison d'état.

However, our raison d'état is certainly not served by any temptation to participate in any EU directorate, such as the one recently proposed by Chancellor Merz, the Big Six directorate consisting of Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland and the Netherlands. Poland's participation in any such structure would lead to isolation from smaller partners in the region and would indicate a dubious privilege of agreeing to German-French projects under the threat of accusation of being 'bad Europeans', as well as the threat of removal from the group.

Without a doubt, the current Government's activity in the region is insufficient. Suffice it to say that the Minister's statement last year contained no mention of the Three Seas Initiative, and that it is ostentatiously weak in today's statement.

There is no doubt that our partners must have interpreted both exposés in this context as an ostentatious lack of interest in this initiative, an initiative that, at the very least, undermines Germany's interests in the region. To sum up, the policy of the current Government clearly lacks the continuation of our efforts to create a sphere of cooperation between countries threatened by Russia. This can hardly be explained in any other way than as an abandonment of attempts to challenge Germany's position in this region.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am coming to a conclusion: I now appeal directly to the members of the coalition supporting the Government, and directly to the Government. Remember how, over two years ago, when you took power on December 13th 2023, you boasted that you would be able to play several grand pianos of foreign policy simultaneously, certainly the European and transatlantic ones? Today, no one can doubt that you cannot even come close to any of them. At most, you are left with a dulcimer (Translator's Note: dulcimer, Polish 'cymbały'', has double meaning in the Polish language: a musical instrument or an idiot), but there isn't even a pocket-sized Jankiel among you who could play a single Polish note on it.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Law and Justice party Parliamentary Caucus, I declare we will be voting to reject the Minister of Foreign Affairs' report on Poland's foreign policy objectives in 2026.

Thank you very much.