While the European Union is successfully preparing for a summit with Russia on May 10, some new EU members consider it good form to occasionally demonstrate their anti-Russian sentiments.
Poland particularly excels here. A country with a large population, no small economic potential and a rich culture, it could be a key partner in developing a united Europe. Instead Polish diplomats have recently concentrated on two fundamental ideas. One is total orientation toward the U.S. and the other, rabid Russophobia. Adam Michnik, a well-known Polish author and editor of a newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, admits: "Poland is the most pro-American country in the world. It is more pro-American than America itself." Warsaw's servile support for the American military invasion of Iraq prompted Jacques Chirac to publicly censure the "uneducated" young EU members from Eastern Europe "who missed a good chance to keep quiet."
Since then the conflict between Old Europe and the newly recruited members of the European Union seems to have only got worse. Recently, Warsaw demonstrably refused to purchase French-made Mirage fighters and opted to pay $3.5 billion for 48 American F-16s, the biggest military contract in post-communist times. It is hard to find a more convincing argument confirming suspicions that Poland, a young member of the European Union, considers the United States to be the guarantor of its security rather than its newly acquired European family.
But if Warsaw reaches across the Atlantic for military assistance, why is it seeking economic support on the continent, trying to draw on the European purse as much as possible? Brussels is beginning to wonder. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer recently went even further by publicly asking if Washington was not exploiting Warsaw to split and weaken the enlarged European Union. The standard label the Old European press uses to describe Poland is an "American Trojan horse," or, to quote one journalist, "a Trojan donkey."
At the same time, Poland has performed several Russophobic stunts. The Warsaw authorities, for example, have found nothing better to do with their time than to rename a city intersection Dzhokhar Dudayev Square in honor of the man whom Russia considers to have fathered Chechen terrorism.
In its turn, the Polish Sejm adopted a resolution urging Russia to condemn the massacre of Polish servicemen at Katyn in 1940. This is a very strange demand, to say the least, considering that Moscow itself disclosed the truth about the Katyn crime in the early 1990s, and in so doing, naturally, condemned it. Jerzy Buzek, Poland's then premier, hoped at the time that the Katyn tragedy would "symbolize common memory, an obligation jointly to overcome a difficult period of history for the sake of a common future ... for the sake of friendly relations between our two countries." And now the Sejm is again saying to Moscow: go and repent once more!
Poland's behavior antagonizes Old Europe, making it suspect Warsaw of departing from the "European spirit" to curry favor with the U.S., while complicating positive elements in practical relations with Russia.
The newly admitted members of united Europe are moved by a desire to vent their frustration at Russia for the injustices suffered in Soviet times, even though the Russian people suffered the same injustices. The new EU recruits are nevertheless trying to bring the spirit of confrontation and intolerance toward Russia into Greater Europe.
Poland, in line with its "junior brother syndrome", is clinging to a Cold War stereotype: a united Europe was, is and will be a counterweight to Russia. Accordingly, admission of post-communist states to the EU amounts to "a refuge" for them against the potentially dangerous influence of Russia. In that way, Old Europe and new EU enlistees differ sharply in their understanding of Russia's significance and role on the continent. This contradiction harms Russia less than it does the new EU members themselves. They cannot find a niche in European-wide politics, and, as a result, try to bolster their positions with U.S. help.
They can gain little from this game. Despite its wholehearted support over Iraq, Poland received no contracts from the U.S. to restore that country, while Polish citizens crossing the American border are subjected as before to strict visa regulations. The country has not even been awarded for its betrayal of Europe's spirit and its ideas of good neighborly relations with Russia.
