Irish Examiner view: Right’s win in Poland will impact EU

 Karol Nawrocki won the Polish presidential election by 50.89% to centrist candidate Rafal Trazskowski’s 49.11% Picture: Czarek Sokolowski/AP

The tiny margin of the victory for the hard right in Poland’s presidential election is going to place a heavy strain on the government of Donald Tusk, but for the media to describe Karol Nawrocki as “pro-Trump” is to miss the point.

In all right versus left political battles these days, every single one is judged on the similarity to, or popularity with, the current American president, irrespective of their actual policies.

So it has been with Nawrocki, who did actually receive an endorsement from the White House, but whether or not that helped convince the notoriously fractious Polish electorate — he won by 50.89% to centrist candidate Rafal Trazskowski’s 49.11% — is doubtful.

Rather, it was the former’s boxer and revisionist historian’s position on issues such as abortion, the restoration of the independence of the Polish judiciary, migration, climate issues, and Ukraine’s accession to the EU that saw him home.

For the 42-year-old, who has never before held public office, his ascension to the presidency marks a huge upheaval in domestic politics, which will also be keenly felt in Brussels. It marks the beginning of a worrying time in which he could use his powers of veto to destabilise an already jittery Tusk coalition government.

Backed by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which was only ousted from power in 2023, his victory will be touted as a full-scale repudiation of the Tusk government’s progressive and reformist agenda and it is expected his term will be far more aggressive than that of his fellow PiS-backed predecessor, Andrzej Duda, who only selectively vetoed legislation. It is expected Nawrocki will be more aggressive and systematic.

With the ultimate aim of undermining Tusk and his colleagues before the next general election in 2027, Nawrocki will also aim to complicate the EU’s united pro-Ukraine stance and his country’s relationship with fellow Nato members and their collective shift away from dependence on the US.

His was not a “pro-Trump” victory, but is nevertheless one which will impact greatly on Warsaw and across the wider expanses of Europe and further afield.

Room to improve

The Irish hotel sector is a hugely valuable element in our vibrant and ever-expanding tourism reach — not to mention the wider economy — and it is perfectly right to add its muscle to a Europe-wide lawsuit against online booking services which overinflate commission rates.

Across Europe, hotels have banded together to seek “substantial financial compensation” from booking.com following a European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling that the platform’s so-called parity clauses breeched EU competition law.

Their legal action maintains that the contested clauses in the contracts they had to sign effectively prevented them from offering lower prices or better availability through other channels and other online platforms.

The collective legal case is being supported by the European hospitality association and some 25 national hotel associations across Europe, including the Irish Hotels Federation. More than 900 Irish hotels and guest houses are eligible to join an action which covers the period from 2004 to 2024.

In seeking compensation for significant financial harm due to inflated levels of commission charged, the sector is finally challenging what it sees as unfair business practices. And so it should.

The tourism industry is going through an unprecedented period of uncertainty due to world political and economic insecurity. Thus, profitability margins are thinner.

For it to be hectored out of vital margins by booking firms is unacceptable, and that is what the ECJ judgment found. Compensation levels will be decided in the coming months in a court in Amsterdam, where booking.com is headquartered.

It is always the case that any unacceptable business practices should be questioned, in whatever sector they occur, but in this instance the hotels have proven the validity of their case and now await rightful compensation. It is to be hoped they get it.

Peddling hatred

We all know that those far-right agitators, who attempt to stir up hatred and division in their countries and communities across the globe, pay little heed to the veracity of the fact-less claims they make in their attempts to sow dissent and fear.

In the wake of the deadly shooting in a Carlow shopping centre on Sunday, far-right activists such as Derek Blighe dug into their predictable playbook to misrepresent the facts of the incident and inject into the local community a parable of retribution and vengeance.

Seeing their best interests served by stoking hatred and disaffection with the status quo — as well as stirring up racial tensions — these people and their grimy ideals use tragedy to weaponise shock and fear to their own ends. They mine people’s insecurities pitilessly.

Their attempts to bend truth for the sole purpose of fracturing opinion and separating reason from reality is as commonplace as it is unwelcome. It is deeply unhelpful, too, for those authorities upon whom the wider community place their faith to defend our society in a modern and splintered world.

The claims they make — in this case asserting that the gunman killed as many as seven innocent people, including a nine-year-old girl — are aimed solely at widening existing
fissures and open misguided terror in local communities.

Theirs is a deadly game with potentially appalling repercussions — they play it with blithe wilfulness and a craven interest only in festering rancour and hatred. They know the consequences of their vile actions on the wider society and do not care about the wellbeing of the communities they swear to defend. They themselves are the enemies of society, not its protectors, as they so vehemently claim. Their opportunism is not only deceitful and ugly, it is very dangerous.

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