Polen dreigt met veto over overeenkomst Rusland-EU (en)

EUOBSERVER / WARSAW - Poland is threatening to veto a new EU-Russia "Strategic Partnership Treaty" unless the text calls on Russia to ratify an earlier Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) on gas and oil market access, in the latest in a line of unilateral positions taken by Warsaw.

Asked by EUobserver in Warsaw on Thursday (9 November) if Poland would block the EU's common position on the Strategic Partnership Treaty if it does not contain an explicit call for ECT ratification, Poland's Europe minister Witold Sobkow answered "Yes, without any problems."

"We want Russia to respect what is written in the existing [treaties]," he added. "We want to talk to Russia, we don't want to isolate it. We want to start from a position of friendship but also to speak with a strong voice. This is what we think knowing Russia, knowing how it works."

The politician hinted the veto threat could be traded for other concessions toward Polish national interests in the Strategic Partnership Treaty, mentioning Poland's opposition to the planned Russian-German Baltic Sea gas pipeline and Russia's year-long blockade of Polish meat and vegetable exports.

"This is why the [Polish] prime minister, the president and the foreign minister are talking right now," Mr Sobkow explained. "The top politicians in Poland must see if they can accept something else [instead of ECT ratification] without damaging the interests of Poland. To see if a compromise can be reached that takes into account the interests of Poland."

The remarks come ahead of an EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday that will discuss EU ratification of a "common position" on the new EU-Russia pact, but if Poland blocks the common position it could delay the launch of EU-Russia treaty negotiations in Finland on 24 November.

Russia has refused to ratify the ECT - a 1991 multinational pact on access for EU firms to former Soviet Union pipelines and gas fields - for the past 15 years, with most EU member states and the European Commission losing hope and favouring the insertion of more pragmatic energy market "principles" in the new EU-Russia treaty instead.

Splendid isolation

The current Polish government led by the Kaczynski brothers has faced criticism in the past for lack of consultation with European institutions and fellow member states, with former Polish officials saying the twins have surrounded themselves with party political loyalists and cook up EU projects in "splendid isolation" in Warsaw.

Polish prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski recently surprised Brussels by calling for the creation of a "European army" of some 60,000 soldiers to be managed by the European Commission, with Warsaw also causing a stir back in January when it vetoed an EU deal on VAT, finally giving in a month later.

"The problem with Warsaw is that it doesn't yet seem to know how the EU works," one EU diplomat said about Poland's EU career. "In European negotiations, nobody ever gets everything that they want but nobody ever walks away with nothing either."

But Mr Sobkow defended Poland's strategy by painting a picture of the EU as a struggle of competing national interests where the richest members get their own way, while pointing out that several post-Soviet EU members, such as Lithuania, support Poland's strong, value-driven approach to Moscow.

"If you look at other countries - France, Britain, Germany - whenever their interests are important, they either secure an opt out or they defend their interests until the very end. This is also our demand in the EU - that we are all equal," the Europe minister stated.

"But it's difficult to be understood in the EU. There's still this kind of division - EU15 and EU10," he said. "If the countries in the EU15 defend their national interests it is OK, but if we do, then we are just 'blocking'."

Meanwhile, Polish president Lech Kaczynski's "chancellery" has taken sole ownership of Warsaw's upcoming proposals on how to overhaul the failed EU constitution, which it plans to present during Germany's EU presidency next year, between February and June.

"I am more eurosceptic than my brother" the president told the BBC in London this week, in a sign the text will seek to maximize national sovereignty in EU decision-making structures.