For the Sake of European Democracy: A Case for US Intervention into Poland’s Democratic Deficit

Author: Anonymous Boston University Student

“Democratic backsliding” is a loaded but opaque term that has been used to describe the democratic quality of particular Central and Eastern European countries throughout the past decade. The narrative that Poland is threatening the future of EU legitimacy has quite literally been hammered into my brain time and time again. As a student at an American university, it’s perplexing that such a dilemma is so prominent… But then I had a revelation: the United States should be largely concerned with the behavior of Poland, a member state of the EU. The U.S. Mission to the European Union has stated that Europe’s security and success are “inextricably linked to our own.” The U.S. has collaborated intimately with Poland in the areas of energy, regional cooperation, economic prosperity, and counterterrorism. Now that it is experiencing deterioration in its national democratic processes, we might do more than raise an eyebrow.

In 2015, the Law and Justice (PiS) Party, a right-wing populist party, was elected by appealing to popular dissatisfaction with the status quo. Since the party took power, the country has continued to trend towards nationalism and populism, thus diverging from the democratic ideals of the EU. In the last few years, Poland has cracked down on media, free movement, and civil liberties, becoming increasingly inward-looking and averse to compromise and international cooperation.

Poland has enacted specific policies that go directly against the democratic criteria of EU membership. Despite the Polish population being supportive of EU membership, the government has implemented policies at odds with EU precedent. For example, the government has proposed amendments to Poland’s abortion law more than once. In 2015, there was an initiative to ban all abortions apart from those that pose threats to women’s lives; in 2020, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal, heavily controlled by PiS and the Catholic Church, voted to ban abortions of malformed fetuses, making the law a near-total abortion ban and one of the strictest abortion bans in the West.

In addition to abortion jurisprudence, the Polish government has also instituted a number of anti-LGBTQ+ laws, subverting the democratic principle of “human rights” and dismissing EU law enshrined in the constitutional treaty. Despite the fact that Article 18 of the Polish Constitution refers to marriage as the union of a man and a woman, there are other discriminatory laws being put into place by the PiS-controlled government. There is now a ban on “homosexual propaganda” in schools and anti-LGBTQ+ zones established to “protect traditional family values.” As a result, Rainbow Europe, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association in Europe, has deemed Poland 27th out of the 27 EU member countries in regard to respect for human rights and full equality with 13.22% on a scale between 0% (gross violations of human rights, discrimination) and 100% (respect of human rights, full equality).

Both anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ initiatives have put Poland at great odds with European Union law, threatening the legitimacy of EU governance. The “cherry on top” is that in October of this year, Poland declared that national law had primacy over EU law, challenging the judicial principle of EU legal primacy. The European Commission has considered taking a number of retaliatory steps such as imposing financial sanctions, challenging Polish law, and stripping Poland’s European Council vote via Article 7 proceedings. However, due to Hungarian collaboration in the European Council, Poland’s vote in the European Council appears to be reassured. Likewise, Poland’s relative economic stability suggests economic sanctions may not effectively compel behavioral change. The EU is clearly unable to handle the illiberal Poland-Hungary partnership internally; therefore, it is time that the United States gets involved as a third party.

With the dwindling quality of democracy in the country, Poland has picked a fight on its Western border. However, its Eastern border also faces an external threat that is quite clear: Russia. Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, its continued presence in Eastern Ukraine, its undermining of liberal geopolitical institutions, and its heightened military presence near Ukraine and Belarus all suggest an existential threat to Poland. Thus, Poland’s national strategy relies heavily on military aid via NATO and the United States, and the U.S.’s rotating military presence in the country has been welcomed with open arms. Furthermore, Poland and the United States share the sentiment that Russia is a persistent source of corruption, agreeing that it is in their shared interests to oppose the eastern threat. Poland’s current lobbying efforts have persisted for a permanent presence of the U.S. Army in order to enhance deterrence, solidify a long-term bilateral alliance, and reassert the U.S.’s serious commitment to Poland’s security. However, if the U.S. were to actually establish a permanent military presence in Poland, it would undermine the U.S.’s authority to resist the PiS’s turn towards illiberal policies. This conundrum for the United States is problematic, because if there were troops sent to Poland, it would not only shift NATO efforts eastward, but it would send a strong message to other allied member countries that the U.S. is tolerant of democratic erosion.

It is time for the United States to reevaluate its own geopolitical and foreign policies, emphasizing the need for a strong and prosperous European Union with its member states contributing to its success. As a bilateral ally of Poland, a strong ally of the European Union, a NATO member, and a promoter of democracy, the United States must realize that a threat to the European continent and its democratic success is as important to the U.S. as it is to the EU. Poland has posed significant internal threats to the state of the European Union because it has rejected democratic regulations that have been put into place to promote democracy and liberalism in the West. Likewise, the authoritarian populist regime leaves the door open for possible Russian infiltration, which not only leaves Poland exposed, but it poses the opportunity for Russia to use Poland as a gateway to infiltrate EU institutions, and potentially other EU member states.

The European Union has been reluctant to confront the inherent threat of Poland’s democratic deficiency. Poland has been heavily resistant to the European Union’s economic pressures, as their economy can currently withstand such threats. For this reason, I urge the United States policymakers to confront the vexing threat of Poland’s divergence from healthy democratic trajectory. It is clear that the United States has unique policy levers that the EU simply does not.

First, the current administration should focus heavily on diplomatic pressure, heavily advocating for the reinstatement of human rights initiatives. Furthermore, the United States should promote an initiative to establish clear democratic expectations for Poland to assert that their partnership and stable relationship with the United States is contingent on such expectations. Secondly, the United States should leverage Poland’s desire for a permanent U.S. military presence. Despite the fact that this decision is risky and puts pressure on the critical partnership of Poland as a NATO member, this decision could be the key to continued partnerships for the foreseeable future. Lastly, the United States should express their criticism for Poland’s closest allies that are engaging in a similar practice of deviation from the liberal status quo. These countries include Hungary, which is considered to be in coalition with Poland’s conservative practices, as well as the Czech Republic and Slovakia. By doing this, the United States puts itself at odds with countries that are deviating from democratic liberalism and enforces its commitment to the democratic institution that these countries are undermining.

Without U.S. intervention, the future of democracy, transparency, and liberty is at risk. Democratic subsiding also poses the risk of contagion. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed certain countries more inward than before, putting collaboration on the EU level a second-tier priority to that of national governance. Now that we see the light at the end of the tunnel, the United States needs to combat the rise of populist authoritarianism in Europe in order to continue a successful transatlantic partnership.

**posted by Professor Kaija Schilde of Boston University on behalf of an anonymous student