A shaky compass

It would be “naïve” to believe that Vladimir Putin’s recent call for Ukrainian separatists to delay a referendum was genuine, said Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, during a news conference this Friday. Instead, the Russian leader’s initiative was “a political game”.

Warsaw’s main response to the danger posed by Moscow in recent months has been to push for speeding up further integration within the European Union. In a speech to the Polish parliament earlier this week, Radoslaw Sikorski, the foreign minister, laid out his vision for Poland’s foreign policy.

Ditching earlier concerns by former finance minister Jacek Rostowski, Mr Sikorski called for Poland to move rapidly to adopt the euro – the last core European institution to which Warsaw does not yet belong. “The decision about the eventual adoption of the common currency will not have just a financial and economic character, but rather it will be mainly political, dealing with our security,” said Mr Sikorski.

This view has yet to gain much traction; Polish public opinion shifted away sharply from the euro in the wake of the eurozone crisis, when Poland’s economy performed well while most of the EU was mired in recession. Recent polls show about two-thirds of Poles opposed to joining the euro. The opposition Law and Justice party is also against, which makes the...Continue reading