Pole position

Anyone inclined to despair at the European Union’s headlong rush towards statehood should visit Poland. It is impossible, when one talks to the Poles, to imagine that having survived Hitler’s and Stalin’s attempts to destroy them, they will allow their nation to be drafted out of existence by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and the other notables who are even now completing a new European constitution. The Poles’ habits of thought and behaviour, including their tradition of disobedience to foreign powers, render them quite unfit for the submissive role envisaged for them by French and German politicians.

This is not to say that the Poles are bent on causing trouble. On the contrary, in any European co-operative venture which makes sense to them, they can be depended upon for vigorous support. With their forthcoming accession to the EU, they will become guardians of the union’s new border with Russia along the southern edge of the Kaliningrad enclave, and last week I witnessed the energetic measures they are taking to guard that frontier against illegal visitors and goods, while impeding legitimate trade as little as possible.