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Geopolitics

Poland Renews Alliance With Orban — Putin May Be Next

After having announced Poland's rupture with Hungary, Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki has reversed course. It is a sign that Poland's ruling conservative government may be ready to bet on an alliance with Moscow.

Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki during the V4 Summit in Cracow, Poland

Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki during the V4 Summit in Cracow, Poland

Bartosz Wielinski

-Analysis-

WARSAW — Mateusz Morawiecki lasted only a month without Viktor Orban. Now the Prime Minister of Poland is back on the anti-EU war path, back in step with his Hungarian counterpart.

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Whatever integrity Morawiecki may have had got lost "somewhere in his contacts with Moscow." This is what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had said about the pro-Russian prime minister of Hungary a few months ago. Orban, despite Russia's barbaric invasion of Ukraine, maintained economic ties with Moscow, resisted European Union sanctions, and refused to provide support to the invaded state.


Orban justified Vladimir Putin's actions and questioned the veracity of the reported crimes committed by Russia in the occupied Ukrainian cities. On Saturday, he was the only EU leader went to Moscow for the funeral of former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. It's a clear gesture. Orban is Putin's Trojan horse in the European Union and he does not hide from it.

Call it treason

Just over a month ago, Morawiecki announced that Poland and Hungary had parted ways. It sounded credible. A country that supports a struggling Ukraine as best it can — by sending tanks and howitzers and providing shelter to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees — cannot fraternize with a country that is close to Putin.

Now, however, Morawiecki has apparently changed his mind, announcing in the pages of the weekly magazine funded by the state treasury, that he is returning to cooperation with Orban.

Orban is Putin's Trojan horse in the European Union and he does not hide from it.

This phrase is not accidental. The European Commission has taken a hard line against Poland and does not want to disburse billions from the reconstruction fund until the conservative PiS party-led government begins to respect the rule of law.

Therefore, in July, PiS party leader Jarosław Kaczyński announced a tougher course toward the European Union. "The end of playing nice," he said.

Zdzisław Krasnodębski, PiS's chief expert on EU policy, said he considered the West, or European Union, to be a greater threat to Poland than Russia. Such indiscriminate rhetorical attacks on the democratic community during the war against the Russian regime must be called by name: it is treason.

\u200bRussian President Vladimir Putin  with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the Kremlin on Feb. 1

Russian President Vladimir Putin with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the Kremlin on Feb. 1

Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin Pool/Planet Pix/ZUMA

Morawiecki eyes Le Pen

After Russia's attack on Ukraine, the quieting of the anti-European trend in the politics of the PiS lasted only for a while. Kaczynski and Morawiecki are returning to the positions they held in December 2021, when, despite American warnings of an imminent attack, they received Putin in Warsaw with the same honors of any European allies.

It remains to be seen if, after Orban, Morawiecki reaches out to the leader of the French far right, Marine Le Pen, to whom Russia has lent money for election campaigns, or to the leaders of the Italian far right, who are allied with the Kremlin.

Kaczyński is right, the stakes of next year's elections are enormous. The Poles will choose whether they want to stay in the European Union or, together with Orban and other allies of Putin, inevitably drift towards Moscow.

Looking back, the announcement of Prime Minister Morawiecki that Poland and Hungary had parted ways, offered real hope. It had sounded so plausible.

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food / travel

When Racism Poisons Italy's Culinary Scene

This is the case of chef Mareme Cisse, a black woman, who was called a slur after a couple found out that she was the one who would be preparing their meal.

Photo of Mareme Cisse cooking

Mareme Cisse in the kitchen of Ginger People&Food

Caterina Suffici

-Essay-

TURIN — Guess who's not coming to dinner. It seems like a scene from the American Deep South during the decades of segregation. But this happened in Italy, in this summer of 2023.

Two Italians, in their sixties, got up from the restaurant table and left (without saying goodbye, as the owner points out), when they declared that they didn't want to eat in a restaurant where the chef was what they called: an 'n-word.'

Racists, poor things. And ignorant, in the sense of not knowing basic facts. They don't realize that we are all made of mixtures, come from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. And that food, of course, are blends of different ingredients and recipes.

The restaurant is called Ginger People&Food, and these visitors from out of town probably didn't understand that either.

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