Public Diplomacy and EU Enlargement: the Case of Poland
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
DISCUSSION PAPERS IN DIPLOMACY Public Diplomacy and EU Enlargement: the Case of Poland Beata Ociepka and Marta Ryniejska Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’ ISSN 1569-2981 PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND EU ENLARGEMENT: THE CASE OF POLAND Beata Ociepka and Marta Ryniejska - Kiełdanowicz The process of accession to the European Union, which Poland became part of formally in 2004, forced the new member countries, in the previous as well as in the last enlargement processes, to reshape their image abroad while at the same time persuading their own societies of the desirability of the process and the correctness of its aims. The European campaigns (understanding both as cases of public diplomacy aimed at the foreign public as well as public affairs at home, with European integration as the framework) were to support the classic means of international relations and classic forms of diplomacy. As in the process of accession, the parliaments and also the whole societies, in the case of referendum, are involved, and it is public diplomacy which might contribute to a positive decision. The notion of public diplomacy in our understanding is close to Fortner’s ‘civilized persuasion’,1 and means directing the flow of diplomatic information via media of mass communication and non-mediated channels to the foreign countries’ mass audience in order to create a positive image of the country and its society and in consequence to make the achievement of international policy goals easier.2 The term itself was not used widely in Central and Eastern Europe before 1989, and in fact it was the accession process that was conducive to the development of public diplomacy as a concept. The years 2000-2004,3 as the time of negotiations and Poland as one of the most important accession countries of the 2004 enlargement, are the field of observation to suggest that public diplomacy became an important means of persuasion accompanying negotiation and ratification of the Accession Treaty. 1) R. S. Fortner, Public Diplomacy and International Politics: The Symbolic Constructs of Summits and International Radio News, (London: Praeger, 1994) p. 29. 2) This understanding of public diplomacy is based on the writings of H. Mowlana, Global Information and World Communication, (London: Sage, 1997) p. 8, and R. S. Fortner, International Communication: History, Conflict and Control of the Global Metropolis, (Belmont California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1993) p. 6. 3) The negotiations with Poland started in 1998, but entered the decisive phase in 2000- 2002. In December 2002 the Accession Treaty was signed in Copenhagen. The last hours before signing were turned into a media event in Poland in order to gain the support of the Polish society for the government. Polish society voted through a referendum on the 7th and 8th of June 2003. 1 In this paper the main stress will be placed on the activities of government in the domain of public diplomacy. Nevertheless the involvement of non- governmental organizations in the campaigns was enormous. Many events would never have taken place without them. The role of the government must be seen in this context as coordinating and giving impetus to the series of activities undertaken. In 2000 the first complex Polish public diplomacy campaign was launched in the countries of the EU. It consisted of two programs which covered the years 2000-2003 and were aimed in the first instance at opinion leaders and elites of the then EU member countries. The first step in the campaign was to identify the image of Poland as a country and Poles as a nation abroad with the aim of adjusting the strategy taking into account the needs and beliefs of the target countries. The surveys and content analysis of the press were carried out in selected countries of the EU - those most important for the process of negotiations, ratification of the Accession Treaty and for the future positioning of Poland in the EU. Thus, if the process of accession might be seen as a frame for a multilateral form of public diplomacy, in fact it was a bilateral form in the chosen countries. According to the results of the surveys Poland was an unknown country with predominantly a negative image, especially in the press. The results of the surveys showed also the need for a campaign of ‘branding’ for Poland. The main stress was then put on providing information on Poland to build a rational basis for the shaping of the image. Despite the fact that at the time in question the campaigns accompanying negotiations were running, the Polish mode of negotiations brought to the surface new tensions with old members as well as accession countries. The Polish way of negotiation was deeply rooted in the Realist approach to foreign policy and resulted in enormous disturbances in diplomatic communication. On the one hand there was a public diplomacy campaign running aimed at opinion leaders and all actors of the process of negotiations. On the other hand Poland did a lot to strengthen the image of a difficult partner, not ready for any compromise, especially after the Brussels Summit in 2003. Previous financial demands and poor handling of the historical legacy did not win many supporters for Poland either. The fields of agriculture and regional policy generated the most conflict during negotiations. As a consequence the programs of public diplomacy that were running in 2000-2003 after the accession gained a new relevance and needed to be prolonged to reshape the image of Poland as a country incapable of reaching any compromise. At the time of the campaign important changes in the Polish attitude towards EU membership took place. In 2001 for the first time since 1989 anti-European parties won seats in the Polish parliament. Poland entered a period of populism in politics with its roots in the EU enlargement. 2 At the same time anti-European and populist parties took a nationalist stance in political campaigns. The European campaigns abroad were conducted by a weak government which gradually was losing the support of the voters. The dichotomy between foreign and domestic politics placed at risk a positive outcome of the European referendum. The main problem was to cross the threshold of a 50 per cent turnout. International events, with transatlantic relations in the foreground, were the framework within which Polish efforts to find its new place in international politics and to build a new image took place. The country needed a new profile if the major aims of the transition to democracy after 1989 and NATO and EU membership were to be achieved, and the conduct of relations with neighboring states stabilised. Still, these events and public discussion on the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in 2005 brought evidence that a negative image of the country persists in relation to its role during the war. Simultaneously, the efforts to create ‘brand Poland’ have been continued.4 In 2000 the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs defined public diplomacy as all international efforts of the state directed at influencing public opinion in other countries. It should be stressed that because of some language specifics, documents published by the Polish Foreign Ministry use the terms ‘promoting’ and ‘promotion’ instead of ‘public diplomacy’. In Polish, ‘promotion’ is related to marketing but has a wider meaning and puts the stress on creating a positive image of the country, as public diplomacy does. The main actor (communicator) of public diplomacy, according to the Foreign Ministry documents, was identified as the government of one country while the recipient was intended to be the society of another country. Thus public diplomacy is understood as a means of supplementing traditional government-to-government diplomacy. The main goal of Polish public diplomacy in the period was to create a positive image of the country and of the society, shaping a new, positive brand Poland. The first ‘Framework Program for the Foreign Promotion of Poland’s EU Accession Process’ was accepted by the government in June 2000. The ‘Framework Program’ was scheduled for the years 2000-2002, as at the time of the decision the Polish government expected Poland to become an EU member state in 2002.5 4) The words ‘brand’ and ‘branding’ are mainly used in the Polish language for promotion activities in the domain of the economy (products, exports, foreign investments). The major documents on Polish public diplomacy deploy the notion of ‘promotion’, ‘promoting’ and ‘image’ (‘shaping the image’, ‘reshaping the image’). 5) The Polish title of the document is: Promocja członkostwa Polski w UE w 2000 r. Sprawozdanie z realizacji Programu Ramowego Promocji Zagranicznej Procesu Akcesji RP do UE. MSZ, Departament Dyplomacji Kulturalnej, Warszawa 2001 3 In 2002 a ‘Program for the Promotion of Poland in the EU during Ratification of the Accession Treaty’ was prepared.6 Its main aim was to achieve the ratification of the Accession Treaty by the parliaments of the EU members, which was by no means a foregone conclusion. Some problems had been anticipated as was the case in the Dutch Parliament in Autumn 2002 and in the German Bundestag, where some MPs wanted to determine Polish membership of the EU by giving in to demands of German expellees, coming from the territories which the victorious allies had awarded to Poland at the end of WWII, which also had had an impact on voting in the case of the Czech Republic. The recipients of the ‘Program’ were parliaments and societies of the EU. Members of Parliaments became the main recipients in the year 2003 when the representative institutions were taking decisions on the ratification of the Accession Treaty. In 2003 the parliaments of the EU countries decided on the accession.