Czaputowicz: Polish foreign policy was neither a white flag nor populism

Former Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz has defended the foreign policy of Mateusz Morawiecki's government between 2018 and 2020, a period during which Czaputowicz served as minister. He specifically addresses criticism from both the right and left of the political spectrum, as well as from academia.

Czaputowicz focuses on two representative critiques: an opinion piece by former Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski and an academic article by Daniel F. Wajner and Anna Wojciuk. Waszczykowski, who was foreign minister under Beata Szydło before being dismissed in January 2018, claims his government pursued a "hard" and effective policy toward Brussels. He asserts that Morawiecki's subsequent government made concessions, leading to conditionality mechanisms and the freezing of EU recovery funds.

However, Czaputowicz dismisses Waszczykowski's argument as weak. He points out that Morawiecki, as a minister in the Szydło government, cannot credibly distance himself from its policies. Czaputowicz suggests Waszczykowski's text aims to frame the United Right's policy and assign responsibility for the conflict with the EU, while also noting that Waszczykowski's own actions, such as appealing to the Venice Commission, contradict his narrative of a firm stance against Brussels.

The academic article by Wajner and Wojciuk, titled "Populism and security policy-making: The case of Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) government, 2015–23," is also mentioned as representative of ideological criticism. Czaputowicz implies that this critique, like Waszczykowski's, requires careful consideration within the broader debate about the interpretation of the PiS government's foreign policy and the distribution of responsibility for its consequences.