Polish Election Result - Eurosceptic right wing party topples existing government

[claig]

"Poland lurches to right with election of Law and Justice party"
...
Distrustful of Germany and the EU, Law and Justice wants more sovereign control and believes a strong Nato hand is required to deal with Russia. The party promises more welfare spending, a lower retirement age and new taxes on foreign banks.

Szyd?o has also campaigned against the EU forcing member states to accept a set number of refugees from the Middle East and north Africa.

The British prime minister, David Cameron, has in the past expressed support for Law and Justice and has included his Conservative party in the same European parliamentary grouping, but the Polish shift to the right may not necessarily be supportive of his efforts to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU."

www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/25/poland-lurches-to-right-with-election-of-law-and-justice-party

Bad news for the EU elites and Germany, which could start the unravelling of the EU. Good and bad news for Cameron. Probably help with getting some concessions from the EU that Cameron will need, but they sound like real Conservatives rather than modernisers, so they may upset the EU applecart.

[claig]

The party promises "a lower retirement age".

Absolute anathema for the elite and the bankers. They must be fuming at this result and will try and do what they can to undermine these real conservatives.

[claig]

Bad news for political correctness and modernisers across Europe. If Trump tops everything off by winning the States, the whole metropolitan elite's world is about to change.

"Like Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, France’s Marine Le Pen and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders, the Law and Justice leader, Jaros?aw Kaczy?ski, a former prime minister, has a track record of inciting xenophobia, sees the EU as a threat to national identity and wears his scorn for “political correctness” with pride."

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/24/law-and-justice-poland-putin-russia

[claig]

'The Law and Justice leader’s great idol is Viktor Orbán'

OMG. Orban is the one the politically correct modernisers hate. He is a conservative. How fast things change. As Burns would have said, how the best laid plans of mice and modernisers often go awry.

[claig]

It's good news for America, good news for Russia, good news for Eurosceptics, but longterm I think it is bad news for Poland itself as they are likely to be used and dropped and will end up having worse relations with their giant neighbour, Germany, which can't do them much good longterm.

[squidzin]

Seeing as the Poles hate immigration so much, will they piss off home now?

You don't really see Poland being popular with this. They're not being very "team EU".

France may vote in their National Front. We might vote Out in 2017. There's the weird thing in Portugal, No one's forgotton Greece or the Irish, there's the issue with refugee quotas, Farage hasn't forgotten about the Romanian Gypsies...

The tremors look a bit like forewarning to an EU collapse.

[claig]

"They're not being very "team EU"."

That's right and that won't be good for their relations with the EU paymaster, Germany.

'The tremors look a bit like forewarning to an EU collapse'

Yes it is looking bad for the EU, but the elites want to desperately hold it all together. But the forces tearing it apart may prove too strong, however they are all the outsiders - Farage, Le Pen etc as opposed to the more powerful elite insiders and bankers, so the insiders may still win.

[TheNewStatesman]

The Guardian recently had some article outlining all the various countries' stance on the EU/BREXIT, and the writer of the article was trying to make out that "Polish people and other Eastern Europeans are very in favor of the EU's freedom of movements because they benefit from it."

Even at the time, I thought that was a very odd comment.

Individual Poles etc. who have migrated do kneed benefit from freedom of movement, but they are not IN POLAND to influence the vote, because they are overseas--that is the whole point.

People back home IN POLAND do not benefit from freedom of movement--they lose out from it, because a) Poland and similar countries are aging and are starting to suffer from shortages of young workers, medical personnel, nurses etc., and this of course get worse when young Pole migrate; (b) Eastern European countries are overwhelmingly white and Christian, and most are not keen on having many non-European migrants coming to live with them, regardless of whether this might make economic sense or not.

[TheNewStatesman]

"Lower retirement age"....? LOL. With Poland's demographics, that is an absolute pipe dream, especially if Poland is not keen on having a lot of immigrants coming into their country. They will have to raise the retirement age, not lower it!

[IndridCold]

Individuals can benefit from freedom of movement, but as we can now see, not necessarily the poorer member states.

We have been hearing for years how we in Britain benefit hugely from migrant workers (which we do) but I have often felt like I was the only person who was wondering 'Yes, but what about Poland?' (or wherever). It is lazy and greedy on the part of the wealthiest member states to keep sucking in the brightest and best from around Europe for their own benefit, like a reverse colonialisation in a way.

How can countries like Poland attract big inward investment when most of their best workers are working in other countries?

I don't see how the EU can possibly survive in its current form under the pressure being applied by all these current crises.

[claig]

I think it is a myth that Poland's best and brightest come here to find work. It is more likely that those who seek work here are those unable to find well-paid work in Poland.

Poland benefits by reducing unemployment in Poland and by money being sent back to Poland from abroad.

The new conservative Polish government is unlikely to allow Cameron to be able to not pay benefits to Poles here or to restrict their free movement.

"However, regarding freedom of movement within the EU, Cameron cannot expect anything different from the current Polish government’s position. “Any kind of restriction on the free movement of people targeted at citizens from our region is unacceptable and non-negotiable,” said Witold Waszczykowski, a Law and Justice MP tipped as potential foreign minister by Kaczy?ski. No surprise there. The opposition party engages in constant chest-thumping about how uncompromising it is when fighting for Polish interests. Considering Polish citizens would likely be adversely affected by any freedom-of-movement restrictions, Law and Justice can hardly be expected to take a softer stance on this issue than the current government."

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/24/law-and-justice-poland-putin-russia

[Isitmebut]

Poland no doubt has been building up its infrastructure thanks to its membership of the EU, via cheap funding, grants, etc.

A one party government in Poland called a 'Conservative' party, if had any commercial sense, whilst also being distrustful of the EU, it would find ways/policies to bring companies/factories/jobs TO Poland rather than have its people leave to work elsewhere - a domestic Polish worker and employer 'win-win', if you will.

But the omens for restructuring their economy to take advantage of both their EU membership and cheap/plentiful labour (both attractive to businesses) do not look good if concentrating on the following expensive domestic policies - that tend to mean a higher taxation economy to both workers and companies alike.

"The party promises more welfare spending, a lower retirement age and new taxes on foreign banks."

"New taxes on foreign banks" although an easy and populist target, if makes then uncompetitive to Polish banks, there must be better countries to for foreign banks to go to - so if bank lending in Poland is currently tight, not a well thought out move.

[Isitmebut]

The myth of an EU for member governments who wanted to control Europe, or thought that is provided an economic panacea for all its citizens, with some friendly safety net if everything goes boobs up, is well and truly broken.

Even before the late 2007 Financial Crash, which morphed into the Great Recession, European citizens were sceptical - and this was relayed to politicians via the ballot box - with most countries that even allowed its population to vote on their country’s membership, winning by a narrow margin.

Now in 2015 with the Eurozone still economically struggling, with the weight of a common currency, fat ‘we know best’ government, bureaucracy, and red tape holding it back – all myths are busted (as were some of the member states) and the EU has to reform OR go back to its several founding members (rather than cease to exist) – so NOW is the best time to get the reforms for all within, or leave.

The EU’s model away from a competitive Common Market, is broken; as like all socialist ‘wrap around’ endevours, it only works while the economy is going gangbusters as often businesses are doing well DESPITE of fat, expensive, bureaucratic government, not THANKS to it – which becomes all too clear when in a global market, too much government holds commerce back – even for an EU project designed to ease the costs etc of doing businesses within its one-size-fit-all, umbrella.

more....

[Isitmebut]

Contd .....

I’ve had that view for a while, so I want to see the reforms we can negotiate, otherwise I believe the EU could drag us down and now some of the biggest Europhiles are coming around to that view;

Oct 22 2015; ”Europe's glory days at an end, warns Juncker”

”The European Union faces an age of comparative economic decline, while the 'love' affair' of integration is at risk, says Jean-Claude Juncker”
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/11949038/Europes-glory-days-at-an-end-warns-Juncker.html

"The European Union faces long-term economic decline and the “love affair” of integration is at risk, Jean Claude-Juncker has said in a downbeat assessment of the bloc’s future."

^“Economically, we see the end of Europe’s glorious years compared with what others are doing,” the president of the European Commission said.
The “dream” of a unified continent is at risk from “fissures and fractures” of national divisions and separatist movements, he said."^

“The European Union is not going very well,” Mr Juncker said. “And so we must ensure that we keep alive the ambitions, hopes and dreams of Europe.”

"The EU’s share of global output is falling and will soon represent just 15 per cent of worldwide gross domestic product, while 80 per cent of growth is emerging from countries outside the European Union, he said."

When even Juncker says that the EU needs to 'reform or die', the project is reaching a crisis point, so a UK Referendum can not come at a better time - as if the rest of Europe's not 'waking up and smelling the coffee' - we need both the option to leave and confidence to grab it. IMO

[Aerfen]

Can't help but feel the Poles want to have their cake and eat it, to enjoy the freedom to work in other EU countries while keeping their homeland almost exclusively Polish. OK so they dont mind small numbers of other Europeans from wealthy countries, Brits and germans etc, but they dont want to see incursions of poorer immigrants from Turkey, Southern Europe or the Middle East.

IndridCold claims we 'benefit' from immigrants but that is far from the whole truth. There are some small economic benefits which only some are able to gain from, and many negatives, social, environmental as well as negative economic consequences especially for the less well off. On the whole immigration adds to the total GDP but it doesn't add to the GDP per head. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer as a result. It is a right wing policy which many 'lefties' are foolishly wedded to.