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2003
Polish Referendum: On Tuesday, October 7, 2003, I had an
opportunity to participate in a seminar about the 2003 European Union
(EU) referendum in Poland (June 7 and 8, 2003). It was held at the Emory
University and conducted by Dr. Joshua Tucker, Assistant Professor of
Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, in
cooperation with Dr. Radoslaw Markowski, of Polish Academy of Sciences.
Dr Tucker presented a summary of voting analysis, and gave a scientific
insight into the EU referendum results. The Polish voters were presented with
two requirements: a minimum 50% of the registered voters had to
participate and a minimum 50% of the valid votes had to be “YES”.
Especially the first threshold seemed to be high, as never in the past,
in democratic elections, did more than 50% of all Poles cast their
votes. Nonetheless, the referendum results were very clear: about 59% of
all people voted, and 77.5% of them voted “YES”, in favor of joining
the EU. The overall results are strongly positive, and give a good
indication of the will of the Polish society. This happened despite
unpopularity of the present government of Leszek Miller, and the
prevailing sentiment among a significant number of Poles was: “we are
dissatisfied with THIS government, and don’t want THIS government to
take credit for anything”. The discussion was centered on a set of data going back to a vote in 2001. The comparison was not quite accurate, as the 2003 vote was more significant and the participation was higher. Still, the data was quite correlated, and a number of hypotheses were presented, based on demographics, economic winners / losers among the voters, influence of political parties, political trends in the society, and also influence of religious beliefs and the church. This may be interesting for a number of readers, but for the lack of space I direct them to the Princeton University Internet address (www.wws.princeton.edu/jtucker), to Dr. Tucker’s Email (jtucker@princeton.edu), as well as to his fax (609-258-5349). Dr. Radoslaw Markowski can be reached at rmark@isppan.waw.pl.
During an open discussion after the formal meeting, a number of
questions were asked. One was about the influence of the church on voter
participation. Dr. Tucker claimed it had no significant effect. He
pointed out that the Pope was very much “FOR”, while Radio Maria was
“AGAINST” (“EU is a godless institution”), so that overall
influence was more or less balanced. He also explained that no political
party asked the people to stay home, which was important. If all
“NO” people had stayed home rather than actively voted “NO”,
overall attendance would have been only about 40%, and the referendum
would have failed! Having been to Poland and Europe a couple of times in the past few years (last time in 2002), I am very interested in all developments, especially the referendum. I had an opportunity to actually see the EU from the inside out while visiting Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. All of them are EU members, and the travel was exceptionally easy there: I just bought the necessary tickets, and jumped on the train. Crossing all the borders was a series of non-events, and I overlooked a number of them. There’s no control of any kind, and the train doesn’t even stop. All cars on the road have identically looking license plates, with only small letters (“D”, “F”, “I”, “NL”, etc.) identifying the country where the car is registered. It can be driven anywhere within the EU, without stopping at any border for customs or passport checkpoints. Poland is already in the process of changing the license plates on all cars to the EU type, and about half of the cars already have them, with “PL” as the country identifier. The currency (Euro) is also identical everywhere within the EU (even though of slightly different design in different countries), and can be used anywhere, with no need for exchange. And, so far, the Euro’s performance is even better than the U.S. dollar! In short, the EU is now just like the United States of America, with member countries being almost exactly like the American states. The only real difference, from the traveler’s perspective, is the myriad of languages spoken everywhere. There is simply no way to learn them all! Still, while some countries are “bad” (they speak Italian in Italy, period!), some others are “good”. For example, I haven’t met a single person in the Netherlands unable to speak understandable English. That’s what they are learning at school. I don’t know what it’s like in other countries I haven’t been to, especially in Scandinavia, but I’ve heard similar comments about them. So, this may be a not-too-distant future for all European countries, with English becoming a real Esperanto. This can be noticed even in Poland, not a member of EU yet, where English is becoming more and more popular. I’ve noticed a very significant difference over the last 20 years: English can be heard on the streets in Warsaw, and lots of people I’ve met either are learning, or already speak it. Within a few years, almost all of the European countries will join the EU. This is interesting, as just a short time after collapse of the Soviet bloc, the new global power – the European Union – grows stronger and successfully competes with the United States. I hope the competition will only be economical, and not political. Still, it is a very new development, and the world is changing in a significant and profound way. Wojtek Grochowski (03-12-15) |
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