How Poland can lead European defence integration: Lessons from Polish history

The EU’s expansion to include countries in Eastern Europe formerly under Soviet domination brought the geopolitics of dealing with Russian expansionism firmly into EU institutions. Because of its size and geographical location, Poland is crucial to the EU’s self-defence against Russia. Yet, Poland is divided between a government that would strengthen those institutions and a president who would repeat the errors of Poland’s past foreign policy in the 1930s, when it alienated allies. In an echo of the seventeenth century’s debilitating liberum veto , such a policy would also preserve European weakness by insisting on unanimity in European security policy, allowing it to be paralysed by pro-Kremlin veto players such as Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. But if Poland overcomes this historical legacy, it will be in a prime position to lead Europe’s security and defence integration. The upcoming accession process involving Ukraine and Moldova would allow the changes needed to eliminate the Hungaricum veto in the spirit of what Mario Draghi has described as ‘pragmatic federalism’.