Abstract
Poland faces with Brexit the loss of one of its most important political and economic partners in the European Union (EU). Poland has had a trade surplus in goods and services with the United Kingdom (UK), with the latter also being the top destination of Polish emigration and constituting one of the biggest net contributors to the EU budget of which Poland is so far the largest recipient. Moreover, both countries have usually shared similar visions of the Single Market and the future direction of European integration. For this reason, the Polish government considers the negotiation of the UK withdrawal from the EU as well as forging the new UK-EU relationship as crucial processes for its national interests. The aim of this chapter is to account for the role of the Polish parliament in these procedures. The analysis of actual parliamentary engagement in the oversight of Brexit negotiations reveals that its role in the process is limited to mere monitoring and receipt of governmental information, despite the parliament’s fairly strong scrutiny powers in EU affairs. While the members of parliament are not able to influence the process by mandating the executive, the level of politicization of Brexit in the parliamentary arena is quite high, with the governing and opposition parties exploiting the topic for their own political gains.
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Notes
- 1.
Poland’s trade surplus in goods with the UK was at €7 billion in 2016 and has been steadily on the rise. It is important for a country that runs a trade deficit with the rest of the world.
- 2.
On 5 April 2017, Michel Barnier informed the Polish Sejm that the financial gap as a result of the British withdrawal from the EU will amount to €10 billion a year.
- 3.
In particular, art. 12 e TEU and art. 49 TEU require them to be informed only about applications for EU accession and not to withdraw from the EU.
- 4.
The Rules of Procedure of the Senat do not contain any provision as to the contents of the issued opinion.
- 5.
The frequency of Brexit-related debates has increased after the beginning of the official negotiations between the EU and the UK (June 2017).
- 6.
The idea of a green card put forward by several national chambers including the British House of Lords, the Danish Folketing and the Dutch Tweede Kamer foresees a way for a group of national parliaments working together to make constructive suggestions for EU policy initiatives, or for reviewing and repealing existing EU legislation.
- 7.
The other three briefings obtained no parliamentary feedback whatsoever.
- 8.
For more on the opposition questioning the Polish government’s acting on Brexit, see the section below.
- 9.
There are two more parties in the Polish Sejm, that is, Free and Solidary (3 MPs) and Independent (8 MPs). However, due to their small size and lack of activity, they are irrelevant for the purpose of this analysis.
- 10.
It should be noted that during the meetings with external guests, both the ruling party and the opposition presented a coherent and unified position on the future EU-UK relations. This common front was stressed by several MPs from the opposition party.
- 11.
Beata Szydło was replaced as the Prime Minister by Mateusz Morawiecki in December 2017.
- 12.
The Dutch held a referendum on the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine that took place on 6 April 2016.
- 13.
In May 2016, 14 parliamentary chambers activated the third “yellow card” in the framework of the so-called Early Warning System for subsidiarity control considering the European Commission’s proposal for a Directive concerning the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services to be in breach with the principle of subsidiarity.
- 14.
Zespół parlamentarny ds. Przyszłości Unii Europejskiej. Its institutional website with recordings of its proceedings can be found at: http://www.sejm.gov.pl/sejm8.nsf/agent.xsp?symbol=ZESPOL&Zesp=431
- 15.
Membership in the working group is voluntary.
- 16.
Before taking over the position of the EUCO President, Donald Tusk had been the Polish Prime Minister and the leader of Civic Platform.
- 17.
Michał Stasiński, Nowoczesna.
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Borońska-Hryniewiecka, K. (2019). The Polish Parliament and the Scrutiny of Brexit in Poland. In: Christiansen, T., Fromage, D. (eds) Brexit and Democracy. European Administrative Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06043-5_7
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