The voice of Poland is not heard much in Bulgaria. That's partly because there hasn't been much of a buzz recently amid the chaos of a crumbling political system and the serious domestic dramas tearing apart the institutions here. Partly because Poland, once the leader of the group of "new EU member countries", had stopped working with this group for a while.
Now, however, with Warsaw set to take over the presidency of the union next year, and with Donald Tusk's new government looking to return Poland to the center of European politics, severing it from Viktor Orbán's circle, that will change.
Kapital Insights met with Deputy Polish Foreign Minister Marek Prawda during the Europe Future Forum political forum in Warsaw, organized by the ResPublica Foundation, Visegrad Insight and the Polish Foreign Ministry. During the event, experts from across the Baltic-Black Sea region discussed issues such as EU enlargement and how to make the voice of the East heard more in Brussels.
Marek Pravda is one of the figures who will lead this new course - a long-time diplomat with experience in various European points. "For decades we thought the sun would always shine. Two years ago it turned out we were too optimistic. Now the European Union is changing from a rules factory to a community with a shared destiny," Prawda said at the opening of the forum. According to him, in the future Brussels will have to take care of more than just "managing our collective happiness". Eastern expertise, the foreign minister said, will be particularly important in this new world.
You say that "we used to be the Visegrad Four (Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland - b.r.) and we talked before every council", but now you talk more with the Baltic countries, with the Northern Union. Is this the beginning of the end for the so-called Central and Eastern Europe as a formation in the EU?
I don't think it's a geopolitical change. I try to understand this Central Eastern Europe as a way of thinking, as something that can use the sense of belonging from the past.We were born as a community. I can say as an experienced diplomat that every time if there is a change, a political change in Poland, we rediscover the north.
And with time we forget it, and the next political change we come back to that. Because it would be healthy for Poland not to be cemented to that East-West. We blame Russians or Germans for everything, we praise Germans or Russians for everything, but it's not healthy. That's why I'm a proponent of this opening. It's a state of mind, rather.
And from that point of view, I think it's also quite natural that we share the perception of threats, for example. And the perception of threats unites us with the Baltic states, with Sweden and Finland.
And this is a sign of time. But to come back to your initial question, the Eastern and Central Europe is our definition, is our identity. Because we have this prime sense of belonging here.
And that's why I'm also convinced that there will be a return to Visegrad.
In Bulgaria, Poland was perceived, perhaps also in other countries of the region, as the leader of the new EU members, as the largest country, the loudest voice in Brussels. Is this perception changing on the part of Warsaw?
After serving in Brussels, I spent five years in Warsaw as head of representation of the European Commission. And at that time, I had a lot of meetings with colleagues from our regions, from your country, from other countries. And it was a very tough time for me in a political sense, because of our government, which was on collision course with the EU.
And a lot of colleagues told me "now you are fighting against Brussels, it's your business. But you deprive us of your role, of your voice". Because Poland was perceived as a country that can speak on behalf of some countries in the region.
And that made me aware of of this role. We don't see ourselves as a big country. We cannot avoid certain responsibilities. When we cooperate with our colleagues in Paris and France, Poland is, of course, a country with a much lower potential, not to compare with Germany and France. But what we try to do is to bring to the Weimar Triangle the perception of our region. And that makes sense of our membership in this format.
So our input in this Weimar format is the perception of Europe as a structure where security is one of priority.
And so I think this new European Union, new set up in Brussels, would be a good opportunity to to get to have a closer cooperation how to make European Union, this Union more Eastern. And to establish a new reality, which which means that the Eastern component is really part of the identity of Europe. We learn a lot from Ivan Krastev, for example, who is very much aware of that problem of imitation of the West.
How would you define the Eastern component? You talk about bringing the Eastern to the European. How would you define it?
The Eastern component I understand by, for example, the anti-totalitarian consensus. We know from our experience how important it is to be attentive to the threats that come. I also think that in the Western part of Europe has to change the attitude, because it's not it's not possible to continue the behavior where the West is sitting in the chair and waiting for us to fulfill the benchmarks.
We have to create these benchmarks together, the components of the common identity. The West lost the monopoly of always being right. The example is the aggression of Russia. I served in Germany for a long time and I remember that my German colleagues told me we know Ukraine, we know Georgia, but they knew the Russian storytelling about Georgia, about Ukraine, and that's not the same.
And now there is a big mental change, so that they are aware that there are different entities in the East, which are independent subjects, which have their own politics, purposes, dreams, and deserve a different approach.
The voice of Poland is not heard much in Bulgaria. That's partly because there hasn't been much of a buzz recently amid the chaos of a crumbling political system and the serious domestic dramas tearing apart the institutions here. Partly because Poland, once the leader of the group of "new EU member countries", had stopped working with this group for a while.
Now, however, with Warsaw set to take over the presidency of the union next year, and with Donald Tusk's new government looking to return Poland to the center of European politics, severing it from Viktor Orbán's circle, that will change.
