The Speaker of Poland’s Parliament has promised to support Ukraine on its path to European Union membership.
Yesterday, he signed a formal declaration during a two-day visit to Kyiv, just ahead of today’s fourth anniversary of the full scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
Włodzimierz Czarzasty, the Speaker and leader of the Left Party, part of the centre-left government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, did so without any parliamentary vote having been taken on the matter.
He met with the Speaker of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (parliament), Ruslan Stefanchuk, yesterday, with both signing a memorandum of support for Ukraine’s EU accession bid. Czarzasty said Poland’s own experience of joining the bloc would prove valuable to Ukrainian authorities navigating the process.
“We had a difficult history together but we must draw lessons from it and build the future on those lessons. We will help you enter the European Union. You will enter the European Union,” he said.
His allusion to the joint history of Poland and Ukraine referred to the long running dispute over the actions by Ukrainian nationalists during the Second World War in which more than 100,000 civilian Poles were murdered in a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Poland regards this as genocide whereas Ukraine argues that Poles also indulged in similar practices, although on a smaller scale.
Ukraine is pushing for being let into the EU in 2027, saying that should be part of any peace deal with Russia to which Europe and the US would be party to.
The Polish Speaker’s actions in Kyiv were not endorsed by another of the Tusk government’s components, the centre-right Polish People’s Party (PSL).
PSL MP and deputy Speaker Piotr Zgorzelski told independent Youtube broadcaster Kanał Zero that Czarzasty’s declaration could “only be general in nature without any timetable” and that “there is no way that Ukraine could today become a member of the EU”.
“We are responsible for Polish interests and its not in our interests to just let Ukraine into the EU without any conditions,” said Zgorzelski.
He said before Ukraine could be let into the EU, Polish agriculture will require adequate protection, Ukraine will have to tackle corruption and account for the crimes of its nationalists during the Second World War.
He was highly sceptical about Ukrainian claims that it was allowing exhumation of the victims of the Volhynia massacre during the war.
“I understand Ukraine is facing a war but if we have only been allowed to exhume in two out of the 1,500 places in which bodies are likely to have been buried, does that constitute real co-operation?” asked Zgorzelski.
The Polish opposition Confederation Party’s MEP Ewa Zajączkowska-Hernik was far more scathing about Czarzasty’s actions in Kyiv.
“He should sit in the Rada Verhovna [Ukrainian parliament] and not our parliament,” she said.
The right-wing MEP accused Czarzasty of being a servant of Ukraine.
“He was once a Communist serving Moscow [Czarzasty was a member of the Communist Party in the 1980s] now he is behaving like a servant of the Ukrainian nation,” she added.
Zajączkowska-Hernik accused Czarzasty of failing to represent Poland’s interests and historical narrative.
“He has no shame reducing genocide to a little light historical difficulty,” she concluded.
The Polish Right, which also includes former ruling party the Conservatives (PiS) and the PiS-aligned President Karol Nawrocki, has recently become increasingly sceptical about Ukraine joining either the EU or NATO.
This is because, despite the last PiS government’s huge humanitarian and military aid effort for Ukraine, the Ukrainians continued to block exhumations of Volhynia victims.
They were also accused of dumping agricultural produce on the Polish market, causing discontent among farmers during the parliamentary election campaign of 2023.
PM Tusk’s government has said it is prepared to support Ukraine’s accession to the EU but has not agreed to any timetable for this. Its members have indicated that issues such as protection of Polish agriculture and accountability for historic wrongs need to be addressed in advance of accession.
Czarzasty’s Left Party looks to be taking the most pro-Ukrainian position inside the present ruling majority, whereas Tusk and his Civic Coalition has in the past been sceptical about giving away arms for free and with regard to allowing in Ukrainian food imports.
It has, along with the rest of the coalition, also opposed the presence of any Polish troops in Ukraine as part of a future western peace-keeping force.
