Between Brussels and Washington

The November polls brought further reshuffling on the political scene, but they are not what is stirring the strongest emotions today. Public attention has turned to the sharp conflict between the European Commission and X, which has grown into a symbol of a much deeper dispute over the limits of free speech, the role of EU regulations, and the direction in which Europe is heading. In the background, tensions in Euro-Atlantic relations are rising, strategic shifts in U.S. policy are underway, and increasingly loud rebellions by member states against the Brussels center are escalating. And Poland’s political elites? They still seem unable to keep up with the new reality in which the former pillars of Western security and order are cracking.

We are past the polling November. What did it bring, in the briefest terms? The Civic Coalition strengthened its position as leader, increasing its advantage over the weakening Law and Justice by 4–5 percentage points, with Law and Justice’s ratings falling below 30 percent. In a clear third place is the Confederation, which maintains support at 14–15 percent. Next is the Left—6–7 percent. Slightly below that level is Grzegorz Braun’s Crown, while the rest—by which I mean the Razem party, the Polish People’s Party, and PL 2050—sit below the electoral threshold.

In theory, a Law and Justice–Confederation coalition would have a majority, but its formation seems difficult today in light of the systematic exchange of fire along the Jarosław Kaczyński–Sławomir Mentzen line. In theory, it would also be easy to form a coalition that is theoretically possible, involving a sizable part of the Confederation and the Civic Coalition. And the least likely—though arithmetically possible—would be an agreement between the Civic Coalition and Law and Justice.

In short: although several majority-producing variants are on the horizon after 2027, in practice we must brace for political instability. Leaving the polling numbers aside, public attention for several days has focused on the war along the European Commission–X line, i.e., the former Twitter. This is connected to a penalty imposed by Brussels for Elon Musk’s platform failing to comply with EU regulations concerning the digital market. These are meant, in principle, to protect us Europeans from disinformation.

Many from the 50+ generation probably remember that, out of concern that we receive only information good for the authorities and not necessarily for society, we had a censorship office in the Polish People’s Republic.

Now Brussels has wrapped that concern in terms and labels that, at least at the initial stage, sound convincing to the ear. Who wouldn’t want to fight violence or aggression in the media, including in the social media we have in abundance. The only thing is that if you dig into the topic, it starts to smell a bit like George Orwell’s Animal Farm or 1984. There is a thin line between what is defined as bad and what may be defined as bad. Opening the door this way for totalitarians dressed in democratic coats, who dream of interfering with free speech, is nothing new. They dream of standardizing everything and everyone.

But let’s return to Brussels’ little war with Musk. A year ago, one of the richest people in the world informed the public that the European Commission had proposed an illegal, secret deal to X. He added that if the platform secretly censored statements without informing anyone, then no penalties would be imposed on it under EU regulations. Hard to believe.

Because Musk refused to cooperate on Brussels’ terms, it was only a matter of time before the European Union decided to impose a penalty on his platform. That is what happened, and the dispute we are watching today is another act in the deepening conflict between the EU’s regulatory ambition and platforms that do not want to step into the role of a tool of quiet content control.

The European Commission’s decision triggered an immediate reaction from Elon Musk himself. But other players on both sides of the Atlantic also joined the sharp exchange of words—which only confirmed how far interests, visions of the future, and the entire value system between Europe and the United States have drifted apart. A fundamental question therefore arises: to what extent can we still speak of a Euro-Atlantic community in the form in which it has functioned over the last more than three decades?

All of this is happening at a time when the United States’ National Security Strategy was published, which stated in black and white that Europe is shrinking, is poorly managed, and is turning into an open-air museum. Washington simultaneously announces that on the European continent it will bet on governments that strongly emphasize issues of sovereignty and national community. What’s more, Americans regularly send signals that among “the better ones” from the White House’s perspective is Poland. In these circumstances, our master of diplomacy, Deputy Prime Minister Sikorski, instead of tucking his tail and sitting quietly, pleased that even the French rooster Emmanuel Macron did not receive such a declaration of support—and that Germany’s position in this matter also does not look very stable—decided nonetheless to take a swing at Musk, i.e., at Donald Trump. A master of Twitter diplomacy.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk also weighed in, writing—quoting here: “Dear American friends, Europe is your closest ally, not your problem. And we have common enemies. At least that’s how it has been for the last 80 years. We must stick to that. It is the only sensible strategy for our common security. Unless something has changed.” End quote. Well, it has changed, as we can see. The diplomatic-and-analytical services of the so-called democratic camp are so disoriented in this new world—a world that is taking shape before our eyes—that they did not outline a new agenda for our country’s prime minister. For our second, alongside Sikorski, master of Twitter diplomacy. In fact this is a broader problem, boiling down to the fact that both within the Civic Coalition and within Law and Justice—the two still leading formations on Poland’s political scene—politicians are in shock that the security architecture in place since the end of the Cold War, i.e., since 1989, is now undergoing profound transformations. They were all convinced that what they drilled into their heads in the early 1990s—join NATO, join the European Union, and Poland will be safe, prosperous, and spared any shocks—would apply forever. One direction, no thinking about plan B or C.

Unfortunately, these are the infantile, self-anointed elites we have. And something new is coming. The United States must seek rapprochement with Russia to pull it away from China—because it is China and its power that are the most important challenge for the United States. Every child in preschool knows this, but, as we can see, the top brass in Warsaw does not.

That is why the U.S. view of Europe will be different. That is why Europe will have to take care of far more matters on its own, without looking to friends across the Atlantic. This forces thinking; it forces action.

On top of that, we have a crisis in the European Union—a crisis of leadership and of the path chosen for the future. Nation-states are beginning to rebel. A loud “no” for years to centralization, the madness of the climate religion, and immigration policy has come from Viktor Orbán’s Budapest, joined by Prime Minister Fico’s Slovakia. And since the recent elections, the Czech Republic has been simmering in a dispute over gold with the European Central Bank along the Rome–Brussels line—Italians want control over their resources. On top of that, in Bulgaria we have massive demonstrations against the introduction of the euro.

Have you heard about the Rome–Brussels, Rome–Frankfurt (ECB) conflicts or the demonstrations in Bulgaria in the mainstream media? Nothing of the sort.
A week ago there was the arrest of the former head of European Union diplomacy, Federica Mogherini—with corruption in the background. In fact, the most important question for the reasonable and foresighted is not “if,” but “when” they come for von der Leyen herself. Even if only over the scandalous purchase of vaccines from Pfizer for billions of euros.

The funniest thing in all this is that this European Union—without order or coherence, teetering toward collapse—still kicks up a fuss, every other day muttering something about community and a bright future.