Polish election outcome could boost EU reform prospects, expert says

The likelihood of a new pro-European government in Warsaw has brightened the prospects for the twin project of EU enlargement and reform, one of the experts behind the recent Franco-German enlargement report said, but warned change may still be a long way off.

While the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS/ECR) came out on top in the Polish general election on Sunday (15 October), it fell short of a majority and lacked coalition options, according to the final count.

Former prime minister and European Council President Donald Tusk and his Civic Coalition (KO/EPP) are now in the pole position to form a centrist government, which would end eight years of PiS rule.

A change of government would also bring new momentum to the debate around EU enlargement and reform as it could clear some of the tensions between Warsaw and Brussels under the PiS government.

“If a pro-European coalition led by Donald Tusk takes over the government in Poland and if it is more open to integration and respectful of the rule of law, this could remove one of the obstacles that stand in the way of EU reform,” Thu Nguyen, a senior policy fellow at the Jacques Delors Centre, told Euractiv.

Law and Justice has been a vocal proponent of admitting Eastern European countries such as Ukraine into the EU. But other member states have made clear that extending the bloc to up to potentially 36 members will require thorough internal reform to retain the EU’s capacity for action.

An expert report commissioned by the French and German Europe ministries and published in September gave a glimpse of what a reformed EU may look like. A prominent feature was the proposed abolishment of unanimity in key areas such as foreign and fiscal policy, a larger EU budget and stricter enforcement of the rule of law.

The wide-reaching proposals would have likely been blocked by the previous Warsaw government, given its clashes with Brussels over democratic standards and national sovereignty.

However, Tusk has been determined to reverse the PiS’ controversial judicial reforms and end Poland’s pariah status, which would eliminate looming vetoes to key reform proposals – “but of course not all of them”, Nguyen noted.

Other opponents to further integration, like Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, do remain in power. It would ultimately take “a grand package deal out of which each member state can get something” in order to convince critics such as Hungary or Slovakia, Nguyen said.

While the expert group – and European Council President Charles Michel – have urged EU leaders to be ready for enlargement by 2030, reforms may thus still be a long way off.

“2030 as a target date is rather optimistic,” Nguyen said.

The project is advancing as EU leaders agreed to make future enlargement conditional on reforms at their Granada summit earlier this month, and are set to decide whether or not to open accession talks with Ukraine, and potentially Moldova, in December.

However, the EU’s attention in the coming year might be captured by the European elections. Some of the reforms that are being discussed also require a change of the EU treaties, a tedious process which took eight years from inception to implementation for the Treaty of Lisbon, the last big project.

Ultimately, even proposals that do not require a change of the treaties, such as an extension of majority voting to more policy areas via a specific legal clause, would be viable only in the next legislative term, Nguyen estimated.

[Edited by Oliver Noyan/Zoran Radosavljevic/Alexandra Brzozowski]