The clash of values between the new Polish government and the liberal elites who have long dominated the social policies of the European Union is becoming serious. An EU spokesman Wednesday rebuffed the proposal for a referendum on capital punishment from Poland's President Lech Kaczynski, stating "the death penalty is not compatible with European values." Not one of the 25 current member states of the EU operates the death penalty, and other countries that seek to associate with the EU through the Council of Europe (the parent body of the European Court of Human Rights) is required to relinquish it. Both Russia and Turkey have dropped the use of the death penalty to safeguard their Council of Europe status.
But President Kaczynski's Law and Justice party, with strong roots in the conservative wing of the Roman Catholic church, fought and won the last election on a tough law and order platform that also opposed abortion and homosexuality. Last week in what aides described as "a major policy speech," President Kaczynski said that Europeans would come to understand that the death penalty was "the fit and proper punishment for murder." His junior coalition partner in government, the populist and anti-EU party known as the League of Polish Families, immediately called for a referendum in Poland on the return of the death penalty for pedophile murders, which opinion polls suggest would be almost certain to pass.
At the same time, the former director of EU affairs in the Polish foreign ministry, Pawel Swieboda, has resigned along with several senior colleagues, complaining of the new Polish government's anti-EU attitudes. "The government do not trust people with documented pro-EU views. If you have demonstrated engagement with Europe over the past few years, you are not part of the inner circle," Swieboda told the EUObserver information agency in an interview Thursday. "This government is focused on internal politics and EU affairs are a distant question. They don't adequately identify the impact of European policies on national politics," Swieboda said. "The cost of this is that Poland won't be among those EU countries shaping new political realities."