Poland's opposition threatens to block EU reform treaty

Poland's opposition leader Jarosław Kaczyński (PiS) is threatening to block the EU reform treaty. The preamble to the polish ratification law is to contain a passage stipulating that the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights only has limited application in Poland. The government needs the votes of at least 14 PiS members of parliament to achieve the two-thirds majority necessary for parliamentary ratification of the document. Jarosław Kurski comments: "Jarosław Kaczyński is prepared to endanger all the joint efforts of the European Union and make a laughing stock out of Poland for the sake of ... preserving the moral and ideological unity of the PiS faction. Unfortunately, the conciliatory tactics of the [ruling] Civic Platform party have failed. To the dismay of most Poles, Donald Tusk refused to sign the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights in the hope that the president and the PiS would refrain from blocking the entire treaty in return. He gave Kaczyński a finger, but the latter took the whole hand. This is what he's always done. Why did Tusk believe this time would be any different?"

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