| Abstract [eng] |
Master Thesis „Poland-EU Conflict in 2015-2022” analyses the main factors behind the conflict of Poland‘s ruling coalition and the institutions of the European Union. As Andrzej Duda was elected the President of the Republic of Poland in 2015 and the party „Law and Order“ won the parliament elections the same year, Poland has dealt with radical changes in the law system, media regulations and human rights. These reforms have caused serious concers for the institutions of the EU. Since 2015, EU has initiated several infringements, probes and sanctions against the decisions of Poland‘s ruling coalition. Regardless of the rift between the Polish government and the EU, the vast majority of Polish society has stayed suportive of both sides. „Law and Order“ is still the most popular party in Poland and the Polish continue to be one of the most pro-EU nations in the bloc. The aim of this thesis is to find out why the Polish ruling coalition initiated the conflict with the EU, despite the vast majority of the Polish society being supporters of the EU membership. The Poland-EU conflict is an ongoing process that has not concluded so the literature about the different aspects of this conflict and the most recent developments is scarse, therefore this research is significant. American scholar Andrew Moravcsik‘s theory of ideational liberalism is being used in this research. The goals of this thesis are: 1) to define key assumptions of ideational liberalism theory by Moravcsik; 2) to analyze the main cases of Poland-EU conflict; 3) to identify the main conflict figures from Poland; 4) to identify the main actors from EU; 5) to highlight the main priorities of Polish ruling coalition, which led to the collision with the EU; 6) to higlight the main priorities of EU actors; 7) to summarize key findings and give assumptions, which could alter the conflict course. The research shows that the main Polish politician‘s priorities to have caused conflict with the EU are national and political preferences. Key players of Poland‘s ruling coalition seek to defend their launched reforms, traditional values of their ideology and to reform the foundation of the EU. Most of these prefrences are intended to achieve more power in internal affairs, however they affect international relationships as well. The main priorities of the EU are preservation of the European values, stability of the bloc and the main princples of the treaties of the EU. The results of this research shows that the main factors for Poland to step back from the conflict are socioeconomical preferences when the EU applies financial sanctions. If the EU will continue pressure in the financial and economical fields, the retreat of Polish ruling coalition can be predicted. In this thesis the main aspects of Poland-EU conflict was analysed, as it is still an ongoing process, scholars should pay atention to further developpment of Poland-EU conflict. |
