There will be no belated exposure of Soviet agents as some would like, or repressive Nuremberg-style laws being imposed by the ruling conservatives as the liberals claim is the case. The most likely scenario is that the Polish commission on Russian influence will generate a lot of heat and very little light. It will end up being a dog that barks a lot but never bites.
The reason is that we are in the middle of an election campaign in which both sides want to maximize their mobilization and in order to do that they need more not less polarization. The ruling conservatives want to instill discipline in their ranks and be able to wag their finger at their rival on the right, the Confederation Party, by suggesting it is pro-Russian.
Donald Tusk’s liberals (PO) want to play the victim. The commission enables them to return to the theme of democracy being in danger. No doubt we will soon hear again about Polexit, too. They hope that the people will “awaken.” The trouble is that they have predicted the end of democracy too often for another such declaration to have much traction.
The problem for the opposition is that their hysteria will not be borne out by reality. This is because the commission will not be a prosecutor, court, and firing squad rolled into one. It will rather be just another talking shop that will issue a report that a small minority who follow information channels and committed newspapers will get excited about.
It’s a shame that President Duda’s idea of pushing for such a commission to be created in Brussels is likely to be lost in all the infighting. A shame because such a commission in Brussels would really have its hands full. Lobbying by Russian energy giants was very effective and ended in Europe becoming dependent on Russian fossil fuels. That dependence is the biggest single cause of the inflation that has ravaged Europe’s economies and thwarted its post-pandemic recovery.
The guilty men have never been held to account. Not even such obvious examples as the former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder who at least is a known culprit. The rest seem to be pretending they knew nothing about what was going on. A commission to examine the lobbying that went on at Russia’s behest as well as for China, the Gulf States, and even Silicon Valley, might at last expose how Brussels is susceptible to all kinds of lobbying.
