Donald Tusk defends borders, refuses to accept the migration pact, criticizes the Green Deal, points out traitors to the nation and seeks Putin agents. In short – in many fields the leader of the ruling coalition seems to proceed the policy of the PiS. The Prime Minister adopted a clever strategy: “Poles want a national populist? I'll be a populist nationalist for you. But with a smile.” But how much in this “smiling nationalism” is the actual, authentic content, and how much propaganda?
"The Polish government sentences innocent people to suffering, and the Border defender beats refugees and migrants all the time" – this message that the pro-immigrant organization Group Granica published not in 2022 or 2023 under the regulation of the Law and Justice, but in April 2024 – more than 4 months after Donald Tusk's squad took over.
This is not the only specified sharp entry of this organization, which attacked the governments of the Law and Justice for months erstwhile Polish borders were besieged by immigrants from the mediate East brought by Lukashenko and Putin.
"Mr Tusk! Today, we have learned that the Border defender has carried out more than 1770 exports since 13 December. You and your coalitions are liable for the death and suffering of innocent people. Shame” – this is another entry from April. It was then added that so far (17 April) "25 people were missing and 5 people died".
However, the last entry that gives us an unobvious position is the most interesting: “More than 354 people have asked for aid and support since the beginning of the year. More than 58 people reported force to us. A year ago, in a akin period, little than 30 people reported violence. About 245 people asked us for aid and support." If this data is true, the conclusion is simple – after the PiS regulation Donald Tusk has just tightened the screw in defence of the borders.
Besides, the same speech is being struck by the Western press, especially the German press. Berliner Zeitung stated late that the situation of refugees in Poland is worse now than in the regulation of the Law and Justice (sic!). The diary says that conditions are worse in exile centres than in prisons, and the Polish government has no thought how to solve this situation.
Ba, Tusk not only “in writing” guards the border, not only did he not destruct the push-backs and, as the data shows, tightened the controls, but besides announced the expansion of the barrier at the border with Belarus, which the European Union is to co-finance in addition.
– There are no limits to the safety of Poland – he spoke in a military unit close the border with Belarus. “There will besides be no limits erstwhile it comes to securing the border,” he said.
Mainly due to the fact that the EU itself does not have much area for manoeuvre. First of all, Brussels is doomed to Tusk, and what it would not do would be an alternate to returning to the power of the Law and Justice Union in no way compare. Secondly, the EU does not want to launch another migration crisis, so the actions of the Polish State are in the interests of Europe as much as possible (no substance what the right-human authority will tell in the media). Thirdly, the Prime Minister has very skillfully drawn the EU into his war in Poland and has de facto applied to EU dignitaries the tactics of facts done, as if forcing them to accept illegal actions in Poland and thus making them their partners. Brussels was so forced to approve further actions by Tusk.
Liberal Against Immigration
The abroad press was amazed not only by the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border, but besides by the government's firm position towards the migration pact. To argue the pro-immigrant politics of Brussels, Tusk began to deal with nationalist-populist Viktor Orban! Politico He writes about the “surprising” but “short-lived” alliance between Warsaw and Budapest, and president Re Charles Michel says directly: “These 2 leaders are absolutely right.”
Donald Tusk has been criticizing the migration pact for months, like Beata Szydło during the 2016 debate, declaring: “We will not accept any immigrants.”
Criticizing the migration pact itself, Tusk one more time strikes the PiS with a visa scandal, convincing that the erstwhile power allowed “hundreds of thousands” of illegal immigrants into the country. The Prime Minister's words odor like populism, due to the fact that this number is somewhat overestimated, which does not change the fact that the change of accents in the politics of Polish liberals is very interesting. In addition, the same PO MPs who have late voted against it erstwhile it was ruled by the Law and Justice organization are now in favour of expanding the barrier.
Of course, if we look at this from the right perspective, then Tusk's approach will cease to be so surprising. In the pro-prisian media, the leader of the Civic Platform was presented as the patron of the pro-immigrant EU policy, and at times it was possible to get the impression that he, not Iwona Hartwich, was the author of the celebrated words: “Let these people into Poland! Who they are, he will find later!’. However, the fact is that Tusk, even as the head of the European Council, did not hide with his skepticism for mass immigration, and the image of liberal beauty of the soul attached to him mainly by the dynamics of Polish politics, which focused on this subject in 2015. He was besides not facilitated by the attitude of all little reasonable associate of his party, who – in spite of PiS – unreflexively supported Operation Lukashenko and Putin at the Polish border.
However, Tusk himself was never a pro-immigrant politician in the avant-garde. This does not, in my opinion, come from his views, but from the fact that he is deprived of these views. The PO leader is committed to maintaining the position quo, which presently guarantees power, influence and prospects for the future. The electorate is for abortion, so Tusk is. Poles are against mass immigration, so Tusk will be, too.
Tusk populist?
This anti-immigrant course includes a tusk effort to play a populist note (nota bene – an integral component of modern nationalism). An example is the slogan from the time erstwhile PO was the opposition: “Nothing that has been given will be taken away”. erstwhile Jarosław Kaczyński announced in 2023 that the amendment of the 500 plus to 800 PLN programme would be implemented within a fewer months, Donald Tusk, alternatively of protesting what we could anticipate from the liberal-technocrat, began demanding an immediate extension of the program, without delaying even 1 day. Equally populist were another announcements – bringing KPO to Poland in 1 day, introduction of the alleged grandmother's, liquidation of home works, the promise to double the tax-free amount, etc. The full series of promises contained in the package of 100 concretes was 1 large expression of flattering masses – folk, urban, small-town, rainbow, conservative. Everyone.
The Prime Minister's strategy is so focused on 2 foundations: firstly, so that the social and labile electorate does not depart to competition; secondly, on the accounting of the Law and Justice (which is intended to satisfy radicals and drive the somewhat defiled duo of the PO-PiSu and at the same time aid the Prime Minister consume the appetizers from the Left and 3rd Way). In both cases, populism is simply a useful tool for Tusk.
Similarly, as the elections to the European Parliament are approaching, a harsh reviewer of the European Union's actions abruptly woke up in Tusk. The Prime Minister not only blames Brussels for migration policy and announces maintaining a firm position, but besides openly criticises the EU's strategical reform, the Green Deal. At the same time, the Prime Minister powerfully reviews Europe's safety activities. As he late stated, if the words "change to bullets and rocket launchers" were spoken in Brussels, the Union would become "the strongest power".
On the way of Russian agents
If we are talking about populism, it is impossible not to quote the fresh speech of the Prime Minister in the Sejm, erstwhile Tusk, no more or less, only pointed out the interior enemy of the Polish nation. The writers, of course, turned out to be hostile. The head of government stated that we had been dealing with "political organization governments that have been under the influence of Russian interests and Russian influence for many years." Then Tusk, referring to the celebrated words of Leszek Moczulski from years ago, estimated that the name of the United Right organization could be read as “the Pay betrayers of Pachołka Russia”.
Besides, Tusk does not halt shouting from the parliament and has already announced the continuation of this theatre in the form of a reactivated commission to survey Russian influences in Poland. precisely the same committee as the KO and its media referred to as "lex Tusk". The same on which Washington and Brussels intervened, and which the liberal mainstream considered the final fall of the regulation of law and the birth of authoritarianism in Poland. And now this authoritarian anti-democratic committee will be revived to grill Kaczyński.
To accuse the president of the Law and Justice organization of pro-Russianism (and this is by Tusk!) is in itself rather absurd, due to the fact that what not to say about Kaczyński is rusophobia (for deficiency of a better word let us usage this term) is the foundation of his imagination of global policy. Prime Minister Tusk is not an idiot, which is why we can presume he doesn't believe these charges himself. However, his attack was interesting for another reason. Firstly, as I mentioned above, Tusk points to an intrastate enemy of the Polish nation – these are the mean PiS-men who constantly game against Poles with the Russians. Secondly, Tusk’s allegations are a striking example of not even populism, but simply demagoguery. Michał Szuldrzyński correctly put it Republic of – either we take the Prime Minister's words seriously, and that means that during the next fewer days, PiS politicians should be mass-deprived of immunity and put into custody on suspicion of national treason, or we admit that Tusk talks nonsense and after shaking our arms we return to everyday life. Only in this second scenario, he treats his own country lightly.
Liberal-demagog
In the end, both the alleged populism and the nationalism of Tusk are simply a drunken disguise that takes time. It's just that in fresh years, we've been having a renaissance of a national idea. At the same time, the position of neoliberalism is powerfully contested throughout the West. "Poles want a national populist? This will be a nationalist-populist for you, but with a smile" – this is the strategy of Donald Tusk, who simply wants to swim on this populist wave. Especially since KO's own ratings are far from dreamy and the Prime Minister can only mention the glory times of 2007-2014.
I wrote a lot about populism in the textThe Power of Populism, indicating that this is simply a trend that has many affirmative aspects but must be based on a certain demophilia and/or questioning the organization position quo of the system. Tusk's proposal does not meet these requirements. The Prime Minister is rhetorically a national populist, but in practice does not implement populist solutions. He uses this costume as long as it protects him from the collapse of the polls (that's why he did not decision the social package of PiS), but at the same time blocking pro-development solutions, even if the support for them is broad and cross-party as for the CPK. In fact, Tusk has dressed up in populist robes, but remains the advocate of the elite of the 3rd Republic.
So is his nationalism. Yes, he is continuing the policy of the Law and Justice against immigrants on the border with Belarus (which should be included in the affirmative – here I have no doubt), but already with the mouth of the head of the MFA, his government will agree to change the EU treaties, to destruct the rule of unanimity and so the progressive centralisation of the European Union. At the same time, with Tusk's praise for his approach to the border, it is worth holding back until data on the influx of legal immigrants into Poland begins to flow. Only this information will be a measurable indicator that will let us to measure the actions of the authorities.
photo: facebook / donaldtusk
