{"id":5397,"date":"2019-09-07T10:10:10","date_gmt":"2019-09-07T09:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/?p=5397"},"modified":"2025-06-11T10:11:36","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T09:11:36","slug":"a-common-polish-hungarian-school-of-leaders-to-foster-a-better-future-for-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/2019\/09\/07\/a-common-polish-hungarian-school-of-leaders-to-foster-a-better-future-for-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"A common Polish-Hungarian School of Leaders to foster a better future for Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poland<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Krasiczyn Castle in southeast Poland, near the city of Przemy\u015bl, hosted some 350 young Hungarians and Poles from 26-30 August for the second edition of a new annual event: the Polish-Hungarian School of Leaders,organised in the form of a summer university. The event is obviously of some importance in the eyes of Hungary and Poland\u2019s current leaders,as in addition to the main instigator of this event,\u00a0Marek Kuchci\u0144ski, until recently speaker of the Sejm (replaced at the beginning of August after he was criticised\u00a0for having family members fly with him many times on a government plane), two deputy parliamentary speakers took part in the first day of discussions:\u00a0Ryszard Terlecki\u00a0of the Polish Sejm and J\u00e1nos Latorcai of the Hungarian National Assembly.<\/p>\n

The main organiser of the event is the\u00a0Wac\u0142aw Felczak Institute of Polish\u2013Hungarian Cooperation, a Polish institution established by an act of parliament of 8 February 2018, a year after the creation of its Hungarian sister organisation, the\u00a0Wac\u0142aw Felczak Foundation. Felczak was a researcher on Polish-Hungarian relations, who during the Second World War organised a secret courier service leading through Budapest between the Polish Home Army (AK) and the Polish government-in-exile based in London.<\/p>\n

Relations between the two countries have been close and almost always friendly for centuries, with a long tradition of mutual support in difficult times. But since Jaros\u0142aw Kaczy\u0144ski\u2019s Law and Justice party (PiS) came to power in Poland in the autumn of 2015, and since Kaczy\u0144ski and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u00a0declared that Europe needed a cultural counter-revolution\u00a0during their meeting at the 2016 Krynica Economic Forum, attacks from Brussels\u00a0against both Central European capitals\u00a0have prompted them to reinforce their cooperation and bolster their region\u2019s integration in order to counterbalance a Franco-German duet whose dominance in the EU is bound to become even more oppressive for smaller countries after Brexit.<\/p>\n

If relations between the two Central European countries are already so good, why then organise such summer universities? Professor Maciej Szymanowski, director of the Felczak Institute, explains: \u201cWe have just conducted an opinion survey which shows that nearly 90% of Hungarians want their country to have good relations with Poland, and well over 50% want those relations to become even closer. On the other hand, in particular among the younger generation, we can observe that awareness ofthe realities of contemporary Poland is declining. And I am afraid it is much the same thing the other way around. The goal of our summer university is precisely to raise awareness about Polish-Hungarian relations, mutual knowledge about Poland and Hungary, and about the challenges both countries are facing now and are going to face in the 21st century.\u201d<\/p>\n

So who are the young people invited to participate at the Polish-Hungarian school of leaders? They are \u201cpeople who, in spite of their young age, are already active in their surroundings, in universities, in clubs, in local government and in their communities, in editorial teams, and so on,\u201d Szymanowski says. \u201cMany of these people will probably soon have to shoulder some responsibility for their country, for Poland or Hungary.\u201d<\/p>\n

The special relationship between Hungary and Poland has been central to the revival of regional cooperation since Law and Justice (PiS) won the Polish elections in 2015. Poland\u2019s ruling party and Hungary\u2019s Fidesz have much in common. As was stated in Krasiczyn during a discussion panel with Kuchci\u0144ski, Terlecki and Latorcai, because they have preserved a sense of their identity deeply rooted in Christianity, 30 years after the fall of communism the nations of Central Europe are the ones which can divert Western Europe from its current self-annihilating course.<\/p>\n

Still, Terlecki said, there remains a very strong temptation to become \u201cEuropeans\u201d in a different manner. Not as Poles and Hungarians, but as Europeans with no national identities, no borders, no Christian faith, no duties and obligations, only in search of a nice, pleasant life composed of uninterrupted fun. When we set out on this quest for pleasure, \u201cthe existence of nation-states, varying languages and cultural differences become a disturbance,\u201d he said. \u201cSo each of you will have to choose between this type of\u2018easy-life Europe\u2019 or keeping in mind that you have some duties towards your homeland,\u201dTerlecki continued, warning his young audience that such a \u201cEurope of pleasure\u201d is an illusion in the face of the rapid growth of Islam in Western Europe. \u201cIt will only be possible to live in such a problem-free Europe of pleasure for a few years, maybe for a generation, but sooner or later it will come to confrontation.\u201d<\/p>\n

His Hungarian counterpart stressed that this was not the kind of world he would want to live in, pointing to the century-long struggle of both Poland and Hungary for their independence as an experience which the younger generation should build on to serve their countries and make a better Europe. For Latorcai, the fact that so many Western European heads of state and governments are childless or gay is symptomatic of the unfavourable development of society in their respective countries.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, most participants rather seemed to agree, as many of them came from Warsaw and Budapest\u2019s Roman Catholic universities and pro-life movements, or had some links with the governing right-wing, conservative parties of Poland and Hungary.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the Felczak Institute is a common Polish-Hungarian initiative meant to last longer than the current political configurations. Poland will be holding parliamentary elections on October 13. Opinion polls show a clear majority in favour of Law and Justice, but in Poland\u2019s proportional system there is no guarantee that Kaczy\u0144ski\u2019s party will have an absolute majority for the second time in a row. Before the 2015 elections, no political party had ever obtained such a majority since the fall of communism in 1989-90. Before 2015, when Donald Tusk\u2019s liberal Civic Platform was governing together with the agrarian Peasants Party (PSL), Poland was the only EU country where both the governing parties and the main opposition party, Law and Justice, opposed the calls for European sanctions against Hungary. Because of the liberals\u2019recent shift to the left in Poland, things could be different this time if PiS loses its grip on power. However, if the European election results are to be taken as an indication of how Poles are going to vote in October, the liberals\u2019 leftward shift could very well help PiS renew its absolute majority, as was the case for Fidesz in Hungary in 2014 and 2018.<\/p>\n

So much for the short term. But the School of Leaders organised in Krasiczyn for the second consecutive year is all about the long term.<\/p>\n

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Photo : Visegr\u00e1d Post<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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