Poland’s foreign minister Radosław Sikorski has lashed out at the opposition Conservatives (PiS) for being “lackeys” of US President Donald Trump’s administration.
He also accused the PiS of disloyally passing information about Poland to a foreign power.
Sikorski was interviewed by commercial broadcaster Polsat News on February 10 and was asked about relations between the centre-left Polish Government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the Trump government.
The Polish foreign minister agreed with his interviewer suggesting that the PiS was hoping the US administration would “get rid of Tusk and save PiS and its political agenda”.
“This is a synthesis of grassing, sycophancy and gullibility with regard to our great ally, which I, as a Pole, find humiliating,” said Sikorski.
“I think it’s time our colleagues from the opposition made up their minds about getting up off their knees or just being lackeys.”
When challenged that he and his party had previously criticised Poland in communications with the European Commission over the ongoing rule-of-law dispute, Sikorski denied that was the same as PiS politicians asking the US administration for intervention.
“In the EU we are at home. The EU is a collection of treaties, principles and values and we are a constituent part of it. It is normal for members of the European Parliament or the Commission to criticise countries and this is an internal matter,” he said.
He added that he felt relations with the US were “entirely different””.
“The US is our military and security ally but we have no constitutional ties with it. It’s a totally different situation to our being in the EU,” Sikorski insisted.
In fact, Poland has no constitutional ties with the EU either, since membership of the bloc is not enshrined in its Constitution.
Its membership of the EU in terms of the Polish Constitution is, like Poland’s membership of NATO, based on an international treaty of accession.
On February 7, Poles woke up to the news that Trump had nominated Conservative commentator and consistent critic of the Tusk government, Thomas Rose, as the US ambassador to Poland.
Rose has gone on record as saying that Poland’s presidential election, set for the middle of May, would be a decisive moment regarding a decision as to whether Poland remained a sovereign State or chose the EU over its alliance with the US.
PiS politicians have not attempted to hide their hopes that the Trump administration would take their side in their domestic disputes with the Tusk government.
