Читать книгу My Secret Brexit Diary - Michel Barnier - Страница 31

Our fourth capital in ten days. It’s raining in Warsaw, but it doesn’t make much difference to us!

The new Polish government is led by Jarosław Kaczyński’s PiS (‘Law and Justice’) party. Here the language about Brussels is much the same as in London, as is the distrust. What these leaders are after is more an international syndicate than a political community.

London is not mistaken in looking to Warsaw for support from within the EU itself. I am told that the new British ambassador is on a mission over here.

This distrust of the Commission extends to the details of our own organization: the Minister of Foreign Affairs Witold Waszczykowski protests that the team, which is still in the process of being set up, does not yet include any Poles. Even when I cite the name of one of the first officials to join our team, who is Polish, a close adviser to my deputy Sabine Weyland, the minister replies, ‘She’s an international civil servant, she’s not Polish. What we need is a less cosmopolitan approach to negotiation.’

I have to repeat forcefully, twice over, to him: ‘I will be negotiating on your behalf, trust me!’

This trust certainly doesn’t come easily – but I feel confident that it can be won from these ministers whose sovereigntism reminds me so much of what I hear in France. My conversations with Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Minister of European Affairs Konrad Szymański are, however, far more constructive.