Solidarity à la carte

2015-10-30

Recently I participated in the Polish-Italian Business Summit in Milan. Discussions concerned mutual investments, euro, crisis in Greece, and others, however, it was not possible to avoid certain feeling of distaste. We might say it was about the menu. Italians are convinced that Poland wants to benefit from the EU à la carte. In their opinion Poland understands solidarity as funds for new roads, stadiums and laboratories, but not as sharing responsibility for immigrants who are coming to Lampedusa Island in huge numbers to find a better place to live.

This was the beginning of the Polish-Italian interpretation dissonance about whether Poland really wants to take only the best bites from the EU menu leaving the rest for other member states. I'm not surprised with indignation of Italians. Poland rejected to take a bigger group of immigrants quite impulsively, without considering why we don't want or we cannot take them, without preparing thoughtful arguments. From the European perspective it seems we are xenophobic, and we're afraid of foreigners. The distaste was even more significant among our neighbours due to the fact that not so long ago thousands of Poles was looking for a better live perspective in different EU countries. Many of them are still leaving the country. Thus, why don't we try to understand those people who risking their lives are struggling to get to a better European world? Why has the Solidarity tradition been so quickly forgotten? Why aren't we aware of the fact that illegal immigrants from Africa constitute a painful problem of the whole Europe that we are a part of? We need a strategic answer to a question how to manage migration in Europe.

It's necessary to come up with suggestions of particular activities - and the European authorities and administration have been working on them for weeks. All of them reach the same conclusion - it's not possible to build a good strategy without solidarity among the EU states standing for its foundation. Obviously it's indispensable to distinguish between economic immigrants and refugees. We should take both of them, but on strictly specified conditions, and Poland should also participate in determining these conditions. Preparation of a migration policy towards both EU and non-EU citizens is indispensable. We need to come up with ideas how to integrate immigrants with a local societies not to multiply mistakes of a very liberal multicultural policy in countries like France, where instead of integration there outcome was isolation and social tensions. So - we should show solidarity in a wise way and let's learn the lesson from the experience of other countries.

Our membership in the EU is a little bit like a marriage. You make a decision for good and bad, and only with the benefit of hindsight you can see how much the relationship is worth, especially, if you analyse difficult moments. We are having this difficult moment right now, especially in the context of Greece and eurozone. Does it mean that we should stay in the shadow and consider that the marriage with the European Union is only a formality, and we have no commitments? Marriage is also a commitment, and so is solidarity. Once Ban Ki-moon very accurately described the need of over-national solidarity in the climate context, but the meaning of his words is universal: "Climate change does not respect border; it does not respect who you are - rich and poor, small and big. Therefore, this is what we call 'global challenges,' which require global solidarity". The issue of huge numbers of immigrants struggling to have better lives in Europe could be assigned to the same category. We should treat it as a global challenge, in our perspective - European one. In this context Poland cannot behave like a spoilt child who wants to choose what to take from the European menu of important issues. If we want to be a part of the European core and be able to rely on other member states in a difficult moment, we need to show solidarity - in every sense of this word.         

Henryka Bochniarz PhD, President of the Polish Confederation Lewiatan, Vice-President of BUSINESSEUROPE

The above editorial was published by Gazeta Wyborcza, main Polish daily.