In an interview with Niezalezna, political science professor Przemysław Żurawski vel Grajewski stated that 2020 was a year of massive challenges — both natural ones connected with the coronavirus and political ones, including the Polish presidential elections. Despite these challenges, Poland has weathered the crises remarakbly well. “Poland exited this year as one of the most political stable countries in Europe, with one of the best economic development indexes in the entire continent,” the professor stated. Żurawski vel Grajewski pointed out that throughout the year the Polish opposition was trying to use the pandemic crisis to permanently criticize the government and added that earlier in 2020, the opposition wanted to postpone the presidential elections because they were counting on an economic crash in the country to bolster their chances of winning. The academic said he believes that the opposition would have surely failed to meet the challenges put before the Polish government in 2020 had they been in power. He added that the opposition’s “game for chaos” had not worked out at all, and despite the presidential elections being postponed, the opposition parties failed to win them. The professor related that he feels that opposition parties not only did not help the government during the crisis but actively wanted the state to fail. During the pandemic, the opposition hindered the government in every area of economic, domestic, and international policy.
Prof. Przemysław Żurawski vel Grajewski: outlined why Poland is one of the most stable countries in the European Union. Żurawski vel Grajewski also gave the example of the situation in Belarus, when Poland’s opposition claimed that “the Polish government had done nothing”. He said that the opposition apparently “had not noticed” the EU summit on Belarus organized through the initiative of the Polish government and the EU plan for Minsk designed by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. The professor also warned that the opposition’s actions were to the benefit of the Kremlin, saying, “I’ll go easy, and I’ll say that their actions were out of ignorance but in accordance with Russia’s main propaganda line.” The primary example he cited of this were the pro-abortion protests from a couple of months ago. He said nothing excused the physical attacks against churches, interference with masses and devastation of the statues of Polish heroes. Żurawski vel Grajewski also stressed in terms of Polish successes in 2020 that the economic and defense agreement signed between presidents Andrzej Duda and Donald Trump was a foundation of Polish foreign policy. “I count this among the greatest successes of Polish diplomacy,” he said. This achievement was reached by establishing a believable system of deterrence against Russia, a system supported by an alliance with United States troops and with respect to other NATO partners. “The presence of US forces in Poland, on NATO’s Eastern flank, makes the decision of a Russian invasion unlikely,” he said.
Title image: Political scientist, professor of University of Łódź, Przemysław Żurawski vel Grajewski, source: YouTube.
