Recently, in Poland, there has been more and more talk in the public about the chances of establishing a possible Polish-Ukrainian federal state. For the time being, this is nothing more than fiction, it is largely discussed in the press, but politicians have already spoken for and against the matter.
The debate was started by public writer Marek Budzisz's article published on the wPolityce.pl portal, in which he urged reflection on the ideological foundations of the joint state structure. According to him, the Polish-Ukrainian federation can be realized in ten years at the latest. Tomasz Sakiewicz, the editor-in-chief of Gazeta Polska, agreed with the idea and wrote in his weekly newspaper that Ukrainians have long wanted to restore the historical Polish republic, Rzeczpospolita (to which modern-day Western Ukraine also belonged, along with Lithuania and most of modern-day Belarus).
Some people remind us that in 1920 there was already a Polish-Ukrainian state community, the so-called Pilsudski-Petljura Union, when the emerging independent Ukrainian state and the reborn Polish state fought together against the common enemy, Soviet Russia.
Among others, Jerzy Marek Nowakowski, historian, publicist, former deputy state secretary, multiple ambassador and former deputy minister of national defense Romuald Szeremietiew argued in favor of the creation of the federation. But this concept also appears with current government officials. President Andrzej Duda's celebratory speech on Constitution Day on May 3, in which he spoke about the "engagement of two nations", can also be read in this way.
And the recent Polish-Ukrainian intergovernmental consultations in Kyiv fit into this context, as a result of which several agreements were signed, among others in the fields of energy and climate policy, as well as in the matter of Ukraine's post-war reconstruction.
Several people take a stand against the creation of a federal state. Public writer Jan Fiedorczuk in the weekly newspaper Do Rzeczy described the idea of a joint state formation as a downright mortal danger from the point of view of Polish national interests, the implementation of which, according to him, would destabilize the region, have serious economic consequences, trigger a direct conflict between Warsaw and Moscow, deteriorate the professionalism of Polish state institutions, even it could also destroy the current good relations between the two neighboring countries.
The full article of Magyar Nemzet can be read here.
Author: Péter T.Kovács
Photo: MTI/AP ( Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelenskyi and Polish President Andrzej Duda shake hands after their press conference in Kyiv)
