In an article What Union does Poland want? carried by the Telegraph and written by Witold Waszczykowski, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland, the author hits back at the growing army of Polish government critics both at home and abroad.
In a highly emotionally charged piece which is not typical for top diplomat, Mr. Waszczykowski writes:
“Poland fought long and hard against foreign occupation and against an oppressive communist regime to achieve its current solid democratic order. Yet its new government, barely two months in office after winning a convincing democratic mandate, finds itself under fire from EU institutions and from over-excited media commentators who almost have not paused to consider the facts about our ambitious reform programme”.
According to the author, “Growing discontent within society is causing people to lose trust in European integration”. “If we do not reverse these trends then we risk the collapse of the whole European project”, warns top Polish diplomat.
“This artificial argument with Warsaw is a futile distraction. The key question is how competent is the EU in standing up to the current challenges and where should Poland fit into European solutions?”, writes Mr. Waszczykowski.
Andrei Fyodorov, Russia’s ex Deputy Foreign Minister and Director of the Centre for Political Studies think-tank (studio guest); Gabor Horvath, foreign editor at the Népszabadság paper (Budapest); Tadeusz Iwiński, vice chairman of the Polish Foreign Affairs Committee; and Nadezhda Arbatova, co-chairman, German-Polish-Russian Trialogue forum commented on the issue.
