Do Poles take Kaczynski seriously!?

In relative terms, Sok, he did come across as bellicose but maybe his electorate expected no less. Some could see it as him merely fulfilling his manifesto pledges to be a strong leader but the likes of Sarkozy and Merkel are meeker in comparison. Sarkozy is like the quiet assassin, the passive aggressiveness which Polski Moc talked about.

would you do better in his place convex - against the mightiest wealthiest and most influential states of the EU - don't you notice this (perhaps still subtle - because not outwardly spoken) notion that what is good for Germany and France is good for Europe

I would pull out of the EU and remain a member of the EEA and EFTA.

these had not unlimited trade agreements with the EU before (AFAIK) also Poland needed this work force surplus somewhere (no reasonable amount of foreign (any) investment in Poland would ease the issue of unemployment considerably)

Members of the EEA have no trade barriers. With regards to the unemployment issue, I tend to disagree with you there.

It's probably not on offer. The EEA is also a pretty lousy deal - they have to pay quite a bit of cash to the EU every year (as I recall, Norway is paying nearly 1 billion Euro a year) in exchange for EEA membership, without any of the voting rights associated with the EU. EFTA maybe is more of a good deal, but look at Switzerland - although they don't actually pay much to the EU, they had to accept Schengen and Dublin or face having the bilateral treaties being torn up.

The billion dollar question is over whether Poland is actually losing by being part of the EU. Given what I saw in Slubice (vast amounts of Germans buying Polish products at inflated (for Poland) prices) - it seems not.

That's the same what many anti-EU Brits don't want to hear! ;)

They want out of the EU without accepting that many rules, laws, agreements etc. are today made within the frame work of the EU-members.
Going out just means you would have to follow these agreements without any chance to influence, have a say in them.
That will become even more frustrating and expensive...

Whereas many EU-commissions would agree much more easily on difficult topics where for example GB would drag their feet, use their power...so, it would be hardly a win situation for outsiders.

Something all governments recognize once they are in power, voting campaigns against "mean" EU or not. ;)

Norway or Swiss have to follow EU-laws in most part already (especially trading) without having a say...They don't live in a vacuum!

But it's completely up to them which laws they want to enforce. It costs Norway a cool €200m a year. The Swiss wanted to join Schengen. With regards to having a say, wasn't that what Kaczynski was saying anyway? That Poland doesn't really have much of a say?

"Up to them" meaning "Do we want to sell stuff to EU countries or not"...yup!

The Swiss joined Schengen and has to follow all the rules it entails without having a say in what rules it should entail...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Agreement


The advantage of being "out" is what exactly???


Regarding what?
The EU-parliaments head is a Pole, Poland already was ruling the EU during the 6 months rotation, they have the same voice in the commissions as every other member country...

They lack a say where exactly?

Nope which is why i deem him a bad politician but at least he's not a thief or a traitor like Tusk.

But people seem to take Tusk more seriously, wouldn't you say, Sok?

Personally, he comes across as being deceptive but Poles seem to like him. JK is viewed with suspicion and it would be hard to change that broad perception.

Better PR.


Thats the problem with not being polish Sean, you dont grasp some things, we dont like politicians in general, the vast majority of those of us who vote are voting for lesser evil, for a time Tusk seemed to be a smaller twat, few people in Poland like politicians at all.

Then you learn he's really a German, he was in separatist kashubian movements, he's stealing, lying and working 2 days a week.


JK is viewed as a nutty fruitbat and everyone fears the nutty one, except he's not a nutter he's just clumsy, i prefer a clumsy oaf to a slick thief but i dont like either of them.

Better PR, fair point.

Polish or not, I can form an impression so quit the crap (I'm a translator now, isn't that enough?) What you said is NOT an exclusively Polish phenomenon so start to see that, please.

I'm not a fan of either of them, tbh.

I'm not holding it against you, if people like you were to f*ck our girls i wouldnt mind at all but certain things do fly over your head.


No its not but Poles are...specific in it, they'll debate politics hotly enough for someone to think they love them when in reality the politics and politicians are almost universally disliked.

Yeah, I call them birds or aircraft.

The same in most places, Sok.

How can you take little JK seriously? The man is a relic from The Stone Ages.

Such stunts dont work on me Sean, the guy got some things right that makes me threat he seriously, he openly stated Europe is out to f*ck us, that if Poland wont guard and pursue its own interests no one will and that our own business takes precedence over european interests since there's no such thing as european interests.

I like and agree with all the points mentioned, that said i still think he's a dolt.

Safety isn't a European interest? Cultural exchange isn't a European interest? Doesn't he take such things seriously?

So how is Europe safe? When Russia pulled off the gas stunt EU did not do anything whatsoever.


Was there any? I know we went abroad purely for the money.


They're both a non factor due to reasons above, i am of course oversimplyfying.

Okay....Sok got voted prez for a day...what would you change in Poland

That's the reason why I am Pro-EU, we are paying anyway. why the F*** don't have a say in it? (Becaouse my countrymen are stupid and think we will lose our sovereignity... WAKE UP WE ARE ALLREADY!!!)


Oooo I wanna hear that! :D

you can do very little as a president of Poland (you mostly can react - little initiative is there) - and on one day - you can well - show up in the TV and say hello to everybody :)

Rubbish, enough shooting at innocent civilians and you can get sh*t done, cue Kaddafi.

Kaczynski completely forgets to mention that Germany bent over backwards to include Poland in the EU - I have a book dating from 2002 which makes it clear that Germany has refused EU expansion without Poland included - even though Poland should never have been allowed to join in 2004.

Poland also (in terms of voting strength) is one of the big nations in the EU - under the current rules, Poland has 27 votes. Even the big boys (Germany/France/Italy/UK) only have 29 - so what Poland is complaining about, I don't know. There's also the point that Poland could do very well by acting as a "not in the old boys club" and standing up for the smaller countries - a kind of regional leader, if you will. But Kaczynski's "NO NO NO....uh we want to stay in the EU...NO NO NO" stance just didn't work - small countries were ignoring Poland and the big ones were getting annoyed with her.

When you look here - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_the_Council_of_the_European_Union#Qualified_majority_voting - you can see that Poland actually does have quite a strong voice in the EU. Anyway - at least in my book, Kaczynski had the Presidency and the majority in the Sejm - if the EU was so bad, why didn't he remove Poland from the EU? Right now, and Lisbon hasn't changed anything - EU membership can be revoked by simply repealing the relevant law.

ever heard of Lisbon Treaty - it will give European countries voting powers proportional to their population - (which is unfair in an international organization as explained by many politcal scientists and mathematicians - Poland proposed square root system which is much fairer) - should I post some links?


you completely missed the mark - Kaczyński is no euro-sceptic (I am repeating myself) he is very aware of the benefits of the EU to Poland but can see how bigger countries want to screw us here and there (proportional voting system is a major step to do that)


you should be aware of the cost Poland payed to join the EU - and it was a huuge cost (mainly because of the asymetrical trade agreements and resulting trade deficit) - some industries in Poland were only bought by western companies to put them out of business (to get rid of the competition - Polish 'sellers' are of course also to blame) (the first that comes to my mind is Fael Ząbkowice)

Business is business, that was not a charity move. No one here is anti-euro, we're just skeptical as to its benevolence and believe we should be guarding our own end of the bargain.

It's a never ending argument over voting - I think the current arrangement works, although in that usual EU way of being horribly complicated. But the problem with the Polish method is was that some countries (like Malta) would have lost almost 1/3rd of their voting power - so not fair, either.

Either way, Poland does have a great deal of influence that she's not using (neither Tusk nor Kaczynski arguably have used it well).


It's not a matter of being screwed, it's a matter of getting things done. You only need to look at the history of European voting to see how the veto has been used as a weapon, often for the sake of domestic politics - look at Slovenia blocking Croatian accession to the EU, all because Croatia wouldn't give in over a minor border dispute. Or - what about how Romania is now threatening to veto Croatian accession if they're not allowed to enter Schengen. Yes, it does erode Poland's influence, but the system erodes *everyone's* influence for the sake of the bloc as a whole. You simply cannot get anything done if 27 members can veto everything they don't like - hence why QMV works.


Indeed. I'm still in two minds as to whether Poland should have gone for membership at all - economically, I don't think the country was ready at all. But then again - I remind myself that I was able to cross between Frankfurt (Oder) and Słubice about 20 times a couple of weeks ago and no-one gave a damn about what I was doing.

But Poland really should be following the Tusk doctrine - be nice to the neighbours, win their trust and manipulate them from there. Janusz Lewandowski's actions recently are a great example of that.

I like how Kaczynski put department of economy into really competent hands (Zyta Gilowska) back when he was prime minister... However, I dislike pretty much everything else about him. I definitely won't vote for PIS in Fall (or PO for that matter).

Komorowski and Tusk are madmen, they will destroy Poland.

How comes they haven't already?

Because they have not yet adopted EURO as their currency, which Komorowski and Tusk want to do. which would help germany and france and ruin poland