An overeview of attitude towards selected aspects of electoral programs of Polish political groups taking part in the 2014 elections to the European Parliament

Abstract

Elections to the European Parliament (EP), because of its role in establishing the legal order in member states of the European Union (EU), should become increasingly crucial among all the direct elections in which Poles participate in our country’s political system. But the results of analyses carried out by various research institutions indicate that, in Polish public opinion, the elections to the EP are the least important in terms of the meaning they have for Poles. Since the start of their organization, these elections have consistently come second (in terms of significance) to domestic elections – Presidential, Parliamentary, and local. Yet these elections, for many reasons, were actually the most important of all European elections so far. The following paper is an attempt at answering the question of how important the issues of Polish membership in the EU, EU`s functioning and policy, economic and some selected socio-cultural (especially moral and religious) problems. To answer that question, an analysis was made of the program documents of all parties participating in the 2014 elections to the EP, as well as of party leaders’ statements, mostly posted on the Internet (i.e. on the political groups’ websites). The analysis was conducted taking into consideration three areas: Political: – expansion of the Eurozone into Poland, the possibility of blocking treaties by particular member countries, a common EU foreign policy, the idea of „European solidarity”, the assessment of the integration process, and potential sanctions to be placed by the EU on Russia; Economic: – commercialization and privatization of the health care system, the problem of government interference in the economy, environmental protection at the cost of economic development, decreasing expenses as a means of fighting the economic crisis, and employee redundancies; Moral – Religious: – the possibility of legalizing unions by homosexual couples, the legalization of abortion and marijuana for personal use, the possibility of trading on Sundays and holidays, the introduction of sexual education into schools, the separation of church and state by removing religious symbols from the public sphere, as well as the impossibility of financing churches through public funds.