“This Is The Greatest Battle We Have To Win”, “Veto or Death”, “Poland and Hungary Defend Europe Against German Lawlessness And Hegemony”.

These are just some of the headlines in the past few days in Polish media, reflecting the governing coalition’s claims in its conflict with Brussels over the rule-of-law conditionality mechanism linking EU budget and coronavirus recovery fund.

The issue has been presented as a “threat to Poland’s sovereignty and cultural distinctiveness” – while right-wing politicians have been playing hard on anti-German and homophobic sentiments, sparking a ‘Polexit’ (a Polish exit from the EU) debate in the country.

But according to professor Radoslaw Markowski, political scientist at the SWPS university in Warsaw, the row should rather be seen as a way of reclaiming the public agenda, after months of dwindling polls for the ruling Law and Justice (Pis) party, due to the Covid-19 pandemic and women’s strikes, rather than as a step in Poland’s way out of EU.

“There is no approval for leaving the EU among Polish society”, Markowski told EUobserver.

On 22 November, the conservative weekly Do Rzeczy published a front-page article: “Polexit: We Have The Right To Talk About It”.

Their editorial stated: “Leaving EU is the only response to EU arrogant attempts to inflict LGBTQ ideology on us […] and to an arbitrary extension of EC competencies.”