What will the EU do to tackle the towns declaring themselves to be LGBT-free zones?
It’s horrifying but politicians in Poland are whipping up hatred against a ‘rainbow plague’ they compare to the threat of Communism and Nazism. But Brussels is impotent in the face of this outrage against its core liberal values...
his poll ratings surged. ‘This government is quite cynical,’ said Trzaskowski. ‘They thought they could stir up voters over LGBT issues by portraying it as this foreign ideology threatening decent Polish families.’
Trzaskowski also told me it had been a mistake to talk about LGBT, an unfamiliar term in Poland, rather than phrases such as equality for gay and transgender citizens. ‘These are new issues here, so it is hard to discuss them in an informed way.’
Yet as he argues, populism is on the rise in many places – and the Law and Justice party is crudely exploiting social divisions seen in several other democracies between cities and countryside, old and young, rich and poor.
Poland has had a remarkable run of economic success since Communism
ended in 1989, with growth stretching back 28 years aided by huge Brussels handouts.
Yet Trzaskowski admits his party shares some responsibility for some disenchantment in struggling communities from its time in government between 2007 and 2015. ‘We were changing the country so rapidly,’ he said.
‘But some people said they’d had enough of paternalistic elites telling them to be happy when gaps were widening.’
Or as Nina Gabrys, who heads the equality committee on Krakow city council, says: ‘We were building bridges but left behind the people who wanted their country back. Now this is being done in the most horrible way.’
The Law and Justice party cleverly exploited such concerns under its leader Kaczynski, a wily 71year-old political operator who started out as an anti-Soviet activist. A lifelong bachelor and strong nationalist, Kaczynski has never owned a computer, only opened his first bank account in 2009 and has taken just one holiday outside Poland to visit cousins in neighbouring Ukraine.
His party’s stance on several other issues has sparked alarm across Europe, especially its bid to control the judiciary with purges and pack sympathisers on key courts. ‘We’re still a democracy but democracy is under attack,’ said Warsaw mayor Trzaskowski.
There have also been concerns over the politicisation of the security services, turning state-owned media into propaganda organs, putting pressure on charities with foreign links and anti-German rhetoric, including demands for huge war reparations.
In recent days, there have been fresh threats made against German-owned media along with an outcry over Berlin’s appointment of a new ambassador whose father was one of Hitler’s military aides.
‘I can remember Communist times and it was much more subtle in terms of propaganda than it is now,’ said one leading political figure here.
However, the situation is not nearly as bad as in Hungary, where autocratic prime minister Viktor Orban poses as a defender of traditional Christian values, takes pride in creation of the ‘illiberal state’ and scorns EU elites while his wealthy cronies milk the system.
Hungary, and now Poland, have shown Brussels’ weakness in the face of aggressive threats to the EU’s core values.
Last month, the two nations fought off attempts to link spending by Brussels to compliance with the rule of law.
Eight months ago, the European Parliament condemned bigotry against LGBT citizens and told Poland’s government to revoke the hostile declarations being made by towns such as Tuchow. Its demand was ignored.
Then the Warsaw government gleefully stepped in to make up the town’s loss of income after Brussels rejected its application for a grant of up to €25,000 under its twinning programme – and handed it more than twice that sum.
‘We are supporting a municipality that promotes support for wellfunctioning families and fights against the imposed ideology of LGBT and gender, which is being pushed by the European Commission,’ said Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro.
The courts’ failed attempts to stand up to the Polish government’s hardline agenda have dismayed activists such as Artur Barbara Kapturkiewicz, a transgender doctor and co-founder of a Christian group called the Faith and Rainbow Foundation.
‘These people think that Poland is the only moral country that will reawaken the West and renew Christian values,’ he says.
‘But this is the politics of discrimination and dehumanisation – and it soils our nation.’
This is the politics of discrimination – and it soils our nation