A lot has been said and a lot has been written, not least in this section, about the transition from the Hungarian to the Polish Presidency of the Council. A few comments of a general nature might not be entirely out of place.
Hungary: two aspects. There are two parts to my assessment of the Hungarian Presidency, which I feel should be taken completely separately: a) praise, to a greater or a lesser degree, depending on the political background of the person doing the praising, for their management of Community dossiers; b) reservations, or outright criticism, for internal Hungarian dossiers, such as the law on press freedom and, most of all, the new constitution.
The broadly acknowledged success of the “Community” plank confirms the positive effect of direct knowledge of the dossiers. To start with, the head of the Hungarian government and his ministers took up their European duties with prejudice and distrust; it was not going too far to describe them as eurosceptics. Then, the gradual dawning understanding of Community reality and its objectives changed their mindset and their capacity to manage dossiers and create compromises, with the support of the Commission and its staff. As for the national plank, this covers internal Hungarian issues which the EU cannot be unaware of, but which have nothing to do with the Presidency of the Council: if certain aspects of the new Constitution and law governing information sources conflict with European principles or international codes, the Parliament and the Commission would certainly have intervened. Furthermore, the rows and analyses have continued beyond the end of the Hungarian Presidency.
The real problem. In actual fact, there is a Hungarian problem and it is extremely complex and sensitive. Following the end of the First World War, Hungary had two thirds of its territory amputated in 1920. Millions of people, Hungarian in their hearts and in their language, became citizens of their neighbour countries, but kept their identity and their language. Their entitlement to bear a Hungarian passport and their voting rights have recently been confirmed and reinforced, which has caused difficulties and complications with their state of residence, and also at the level of the EU (functioning of the Schengen area). That, in a nutshell, is the Hungarian problem in Europe; and it gets worse when the right wing is in power in Budapest. But in the EU, nobody talks about this; not in Brussels, not in Strasbourg. Somebody is going to have to dare to talk about it one day, even if the laws on nationality are not a matter for Community legislation.
Polish pride. As for Poland, the evaluations must not neglect elements related to psychological and, I would say, almost sentimental factors: satisfaction at the road they have travelled, national pride in a positive sense. The oldest among us have not forgotten the time when the Polish plumber was seen as the archetypal worker who came to Western Europe to steal work from the local labour force, by undercutting their prices: it was the fear of social dumping. Now, Polish workers have jobs at home, and the economic growth rate of their country far outstrips that of the eurozone. Germany dreams of Polish engineers or computer experts to plug its gaps in qualified labour force. Unemployment has practically disappeared in Warsaw, Gdansk and Katowice (even if the small cities of the East are still a bit behind). The authorities recognise the essential part played by EU support: since 2004, 67 billion euros under the regional and cohesion policy and 14 billion for agriculture. But how many member states have received similar funding, or proportionately higher funding, without similar results? After the somewhat sinister era of the Kaczynski brothers, Poland has made good use of this manna from Europe, and the investments which have followed from Germany, France and elsewhere, particularly for infrastructure (railways, motorways, airports). Not forgetting the fact that the cultural and artistic elements have been just as well looked after: with Chopin at the top of the list, this is entirely to be expected, but also Kraków, the College of Europe at Natolin and the renewal of agricultural civilisation. Sport has also benefited from this dynamism (next year, it will host the European Football Championships). All of this leads to optimism and dynamism, which will feed back onto Poland's actions at the head of the ministerial Councils of the EU.
A question mark. For me, the mystery of Poland's support for Turkish accession has not yet been cleared up. Turkey is a huge country which certainly deserves to extend its influence in the world, but it is acting on its own agenda and has its own specific problems. Why is Poland so keen on extending Europe into the heart of Asia, thereby watering it down? How can it not understand that a watered-down EU would be larger but less united, basically duplicating the work of the Council of Europe? And how many regions would lose much of their current Community funding under the cohesion policy and common agricultural policy? It's beyond me. (F.R./transl.fl)