Poland's rejection of the re-appointment of its fellow national Donald Tusk as president of the European Council has eclipsed another Polish protest, which also took place at the meeting in Brussels of the EU28 leaders during the evening of Thursday 9 March – that of the EU Council's political agreement on a key climate issue.
Poland's Prime Minister Beata Szydlo protested in front of the EU heads of state or government about the political agreement in principle (general approach) reached on 28 February by qualified majority at the Environment Council on the reform of the emissions trading system (ETS) for the 2021-2030 period (see EUROPE 11741).
At the time it was understood that her country would refuse to support the conclusions of the European Council, Szydlo said that in Poland's opinion, it is the rules of the Nice Treaty (and not those of the Lisbon Treaty) that applied. As a consequence, the nine countries that were opposed to the compromise on the reform of the European carbon market should constitute a blocking minority.
This became clear because the Polish delegation had made it quite plain that it had doubts about the existence of a qualified majority when the nine delegations (Poland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Croatia and Cyprus) had opposed the hard-reached compromise (see EUROPE 11735).
Behind these two unique positions is a constant – Poland's conviction that all important decisions must be taken by consensus (thus by unanimity) at the highest level, which was not the case for the re-appointment of Donald Tusk, or for the ETS reform (a co-decision issue, which Poland hoped it could make the subject of European Council guidelines before an agreement in principle of the Council of the EU). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang with Jan Kordys)