In the current tensions between Poland and Ukraine, I’m on Poland’s side. As we all know, I’m loyal to principles and detest partisanship. Poland is standing up to the EU’s high-handedness, and kudos to the Poles for that. And Ukraine, as a johnny come lately of the euro-integration process who’s too busy with its own problems to understand the intricacies of the EU politics, is acting like a bull in a china shop.
I have no doubt that the two countries will figure it out and will be as friendly as ever. And I hope that a wide-eyed admiration of the EU disappears from Ukraine for good. I dedicated a whole chapter of my book, explaining how Spaniards shot themselves not just in the foot but in every extremity when they traded sovereignty for the fantasy of being considered “real Europeanness”. They never asked themselves, I say in the book, why the label of Europeanness was being awarded by somebody else and why it had to be paid for so dearly. It’s best to ask these questions before than after.
“What’s the point of dying to defend your sovereignty from Russia to then go and cede it to somebody else?” I ask in the book.
Clarissa's Blog 
I’m not pretending to be an expert here, but as a Brexit-supporting Brit I understand completely the Polish desire to control their borders and the implications of their trade policy.
As someone who believes in the rule of law and international trade (believing that these are what has driven the massive decrease in global poverty over the last three centuries) I’m disappointed that Warsaw has chosen subsidised farming and tariff barriers (which make every nation poorer) as the trigger issue for this.
As a cynic who has watched many elections, I’m not surprised by this rhetoric and I agree with Clarissa that this will be resolved after the election in Poland with suitable climb-downs on all sides.
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” Polish desire to control their borders”
The current big scandal:
The government (quite rightly) prevented as many migrants from coming into the country from Belarus (now moscow is sending them too).
The opposition (foolishly) took a more EU-ish approach pointing out that many simply wanted to get to Germany.
So the ruling party has a referendum about whether the country should accept ‘illegal immigrants’ from some daft EU distribution plan.
Then it came to light that not only has the government been handing out work visas like candy (often from the same country as the migrants) to plug gaps in the labor market but some officials in the ministry of foreign affairs were involved in a corrupt ‘cash for visa’ program. One memorable case saw a bunch of Indians get visas for a fake movie project (they only used Poland to get to Mexico so they could get to the US).
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Sometimes Zelenskyy runs his mouth too much. If he had criticisms of Poland he should have voiced them privately. This is one of those case where he needs to back down and make amends.
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“current tensions between Poland and Ukraine”
Context: Parliamentary elections are set for Oct 15, the ruling party (see below) is in a tighter than usual race.
Background: The ruling party is full of bunglers and boobs and crooks. The only thing they’re good at is giving handouts (not entirely bad but over-played) and the only time I’ve really agreed with them is support for Ukraine.
Polish people find it extraordinarily hard to work together so the opposition is split up more than it should be.
Ukrainian grain was bungled (as usual) at first as crooks related to the government made money on it while local farmers lost so the ruling party lost a lot of support in the countryside (a traditional stronghold) and so the posturing is aimed at them.
Also, as a friend commented… ‘are Ukrainians even worse at diplomacy than Poles?’ That would be a feat…
AFAICT the conflict is being resolved and soon no one will remember it. Also some things said were taken out of context and used by russian shills to try to sow discord in the usual way…
I think the EU is overall good and has certainly helped improve the quality of life in Poland but it’s important to remember that overall good also means there are negatives and Ukrainians (like other countries) should steer a middle ground between early Spanish style EU worship and British disdain).
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