European Diary:Tomorrow is the first European day against the death penalty. At least it is, according to the Strasbourg-based human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe. However, for the 27 EU members, October 10th remains just another day in its busy calendar.
The union, which prides itself on its opposition to capital punishment, has not been able to embrace the initiative because of Polish opposition. Warsaw wielded its veto at the Council of Ministers, arguing the event must support the broader principle of the right to life and also oppose abortion and euthanasia.
Polish opposition to the special day against the death penalty, a pet project of Portugal's six-month presidency of the EU, prompted an angry response from some countries.
Italian foreign minister Massimo D'Alema said Warsaw's action was "reactionary and nationalistic", while the leader of the Socialist group at the European Parliament, Martin Schultz, called for other EU leaders to isolate Poland in future EU talks.
"The Polish government did everything it could to alienate itself from other member states on this issue," says Piotr Kaczynski, analyst at the Centre for European Policy Studies. "It is the same on abortion, euthanasia and gay rights."
Since the Law and Justice party (PiS) led by Kaczynski twins, Lech and Jaroslaw, assumed power in 2005, Poland has become an awkward EU partner. Playing to its conservative Catholic voting base, the twins have spoken up in favour of the death penalty, reminded Germany of its culpability for the second World War and recently even allowed their government's spokeswoman on children to wage a campaign against Tinky Winky, the handbag-toting Teletubby, for promoting a "homosexual lifestyle".
Such illiberal outbursts are ridiculed in Brussels. Yet dismissing the Kaczynski twins as political dinosaurs may play into their hands in the Polish general election on October 21st.
"Opposition to the death penalty was an electioneering move," says Andrzej Bobinski, at the Center for International Relations in Warsaw. "Some 63 per cent of Poles say they are for the death penalty and the government's stance on the issue enabled the Kaczynski twins to show that they were standing up to the liberal EU."
According to Bobinski, the twins are brilliant tactical politicians who have managed to dictate the media agenda in the campaign so far. Pollsters tend to agree. A survey conducted for the magazine Wprost on Saturday indicated PiS would win the elections with 41 per cent of the vote, while the pro-business Civic Platform would get just 32 per cent.
In a TV debate last week, Jaroslaw Kaczynski lauded his record on standing firm in EU talks on a range of issues such as vetoing EU partnership talks with Russia. "We've gained respect, the status of a country that has to be reckoned with," he said.
But a Kaczynski victory in the polls would represent a nightmare scenario for many EU diplomats, who have even coined a phrase for Poland's erratic negotiating stance on European issues. "We call it the 'Polish opening', like in chess. It is an idea presented at the last moment in a very belligerent way," explained one Brussels diplomat.
"Right now you have confusion about Poland," says the Centre for European Policy Studies' Piotr Kaczynski. "If there is a voice from Warsaw people don't listen to it because it is so unpredictable."
Upon assuming power, the Kaczynski twins stripped the civil service of several talented civil servants perceived as too pro-EU. Marek Grela, veteran ambassador to Brussels, and Pawel Swieboda, director of the EU department at the foreign ministry, both left the diplomatic service in the purge.
Warsaw's relationship with Berlin has also been severely damaged. Jaroslaw Kaczynski's use of Poland's war losses as a basis for requesting more voting weight at the Council of Ministers enraged Berlin. His decision to schedule the Polish election just two days after the Lisbon summit on October 19th, which is seeking a deal on the EU reform treaty, has EU diplomats worried.
"This allows him to play the European card coming up to the election," says Antonio Missiroli, director of the European Policy Centre.
"If they are trailing in the polls coming up to the election, they could make a last-ditch effort to fight for compromises on the voting issue in the treaty . . . it also allows them to get around the two-day cooling-off period in Poland when campaigning is not allowed before an election."
Another Polish veto in Lisbon on the treaty would prompt consternation among other EU leaders, but clearly in a tight election campaign anything is possible from the pugnacious Kaczynski twins.