Poland is being given an opportunity to matter in Europe

In late january, as energy prices soared across Europe, billboards across Poland offered peeved bill-payers a familiar narrative: blame Brussels. Fully 60% of the rise in power prices was the fault of the European Union’s green policies, insisted the state-owned utilities behind the campaign. This was, to put it mildly, a gross exaggeration. In any case, the campaign was quietly shelved after Russia invaded Ukraine a few weeks later, sending energy prices higher still. Poland’s bigwigs have switched to blaming someone scarier than any eurocrat for the rising cost of living. The new slogan is “Putinflation”.

For years Poland has tussled with the eu. The European Commission in Brussels, egged on by some member states, castigates it for flouting the norms of liberal democracy; Poland is in the dock for letting politicians pick and sack judges, for bashing gays and for muzzling the media. It has also attracted brickbats for its restrictive abortion laws—terminations are banned except in cases of rape or a threat to the mother’s life. All this criticism has riled the conservative-nationalist government headed by pis (Law and Justice), which has been in power since 2015. It accuses Brussels of seeking to impose its politically correct views on a population wedded to tradition; pis grandees have likened the eu to Poland’s former Soviet overlords and raised doubts over whether its laws ought to apply to Poland. The commission has in turn throttled some of the subsidies that flow to Poles.