Through the Looking Glass: The Attitudes of Polish Political Parties towards the EU before and after Accession

Abstract

The objective of this paper is a comparison of the attitudes of parliamentary parties towards the European Union in terms of Poland's accession to the European Union. Therefore the parliamentary parties' attitudes after the elections in 2001 and 2005 have been analyzed and compared. Another significant aim of this paper is the identification of factors conditioning these attitudes as well as changes in them. The change from a candidate to a member of the EU forced the political parties to redefine their attitudes towards Europe since the character of the European issue itself also changed. This especially applies to those parties which strongly opposed Poland's accession to the EU. Accession was not the only factor but was definitely one of the most important. Although in the period analyzed the European issue played a secondary role in the election behaviour of the electorate, it served as a lens on more fundamental dilemmas related to the role of state sovereignty, national identity, religion or individual rights.