By AmCham Poland Marta Pawlak and Bartosz Szyler
View from AmCham Poland: a Transatlantic Presidency?
Poland traditionally holds an unequivocally positive attitude towards the United States. The sources of this sympathy are complex and deep: from the traditionally favorable attitude of the US towards Polish independence, through the presence of large Polish minority in the US, to the unequivocal support of the US for the Poland’s accession to NATO and the European Union.
Security cooperation with the US is of paramount importance for Poland in particular. The Polish Army’s participation in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the presence of American soldiers in Polish bases or the huge purchases of American military equipment, including Abrams tanks, F-35 aircraft or Patriot systems, show that relations with the USA are a central vector of Polish security policy. This special relationship has gained additional importance with the increasingly aggressive implementation of the neo-imperialist agenda by Vladimir Putin’s Russia leading to the full-scale aggression against Ukraine.
All these circumstances led to the expectation that the Polish Presidency of the Council, which began in January this year, would have an unambiguously transatlantic character. After all, who if not Poland, sometimes described as the best student in the class of young Central European democracies, was to give EU-US relations a new, positive dynamic? This expectation was also reflected in the first programme documents on the goals of the Presidency, adopted by the Polish government back in 2023, which identified the strengthening of transatlantic relations as one of the key goals of the Presidency.
Given the slim resources at the Presidency’s disposal, there were still too many issues to deal with in transatlantic relations. Internal EU regulations affecting American companies, e.g. in the area of public procurement or data retention, the development of defense capabilities or transatlantic trade relations required a new political impulse, which the Polish Presidency seemed ready to give. Few, however, expected how different the conditions under which the presidency would operate might be.
Now, halfway through the period of Polish presidency, one can make a preliminary assessment of whether it has indeed taken on a transatlantic dimension. Somewhat paradoxically, it seems justified to assess that it has. Admittedly, no breakthrough has been achieved so far in any of the difficult areas in need of reform mentioned earlier. However, in view of the sharp decline in confidence in the future of transatlantic relations brought about by the first weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency, Poland, through the mouths of Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz or Foreign Affairs Minister Radosław Sikorski, has repeatedly affirmed that no words or tweets will shatter relations forged over decades in a matter of weeks. Poland also had its undoubted share in the European institutions’ very calm and measured response to repeated threats to impose tariffs, which, at least for the moment, made it possible to avoid a tariff war that would have been highly damaging to both sides.
Presidencies used to set themselves the goal of getting at least one major piece of legislation passed during their term. Even if the promising work in the areas of common armaments, raising competitiveness, energy policy or regulation of capital markets were not to be completed during the Polish presidency, Poland still has one goal, the achievement of which may be more important than all the individual pieces of legislation. That goal is to steer EU-US relations through the current turbulent period and avoid a damaging escalation for all parties. Regardless of differences in views on transatlantic relations among EU countries, it seems uncontroversial that this is a goal worth pursuing.