Polish region sticks with anti-LGBTQ+ resolution despite threat of losing EU cash

WARSAW — The threat of losing as much as €2.5 billion in EU funds wasn’t enough to deter a regional parliament in Poland on Thursday from refusing to drop an anti-LGBTQ+ resolution.

The Małopolska region in southern Poland two years ago passed a resolution opposing “public activities aimed at promoting the ideology of LGBT movements.” It was part of a wave of similar resolutions passed by local governments — spurred on by efforts by top politicians with the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party to attack what they called “LGBT ideology.”

That’s set off a growing conflict between Warsaw and Brussels. Last month, the European Commission started a legal case against Poland, saying Warsaw failed to appropriately respond to its inquiry regarding so-called “LGBT-ideology free zones.” Poland has until September 15 to respond. 

On Thursday, opposition members of the Małopolska regional assembly called for a vote to withdraw the statement after the European Commission informed local authorities that it could block some EU funds to regions that had passed such declarations. That could mean Małopolska might not get €2.5 billion under the EU’s new seven-year budget and could lose some current funds, according to Polish media reports.

“The Commission isn’t joking,” Tomasz Urynowicz, deputy speaker of the Małopolskie region’s parliament who quit PiS over Thursday’s vote, said in a statement on Facebook. He backed the original resolution but has since switched positions.

But lawmakers from PiS shot down the opposition’s effort.

Jan Duda, the head of the assembly and the father of Polish President Andrzej Duda, said that the only aim of the declaration is to “protect families.”

“Some barbarians want to strip us of the funds that are crucial for our families to live well,” he said during Thursday’s debate. “This is money that we deserve, it’s not some kind of charity.”

Andrzej Duda unleashed anti-LGBTQ+ attacks during last year’s presidential election campaign — an effort to appeal to his core conservative and ultra-Catholic electorate.

The resolution is also strongly backed by the Roman Catholic Church, parts of which are closely allied with PiS.

“Freedom has its price. This price includes honor. Freedom can’t be bought with money,” Archbishop Marek Jędraszewski said in a Sunday sermon. He also warned of the battle between the Virgin Mary and her followers against “neo-Marxist LGBT ideology.”

Poland is the most homophobic country in the EU, according to a ranking by ILGA-Europe. According to the Atlas of Hate project, the towns and regions that have signed some sort of anti-LGBTQ+ document cover one-third of Poland’s territory. 

Blocked money

Although the Commission doesn’t formally link paying out EU funds to respecting the bloc’s fundamental rights, Brussels is signaling that it will find ways to put pressure on countries that discriminate against LGBTQ+ groups.

Last year, six Polish towns that had passed anti-LGBTQ+ declarations — Brussels never named them — didn’t get extra funds from the Commission’s town twinning program.

Urynowicz warned that the Commission has been engaged in a dialogue with Małopolska for many months, and now has sent a warning letter. 

“There is concrete information that says that the European Commission has plans to reach for a very dangerous tool which is blocking negotiations on the new EU budget, blocking the current budget, and blocking EU funds for promoting the region,” he said. 

According to internal documents sent to the Małopolskie assembly in July and seen by POLITICO, a Commission representative warned the assembly that such local anti-LGBTQ+ declarations could be an argument for the Commission to block current cohesion funds and extra money for promotional activities and also suspend negotiations on upcoming budget payments to the region. 

The European Commission “does not see a justification for further investments” from the upcoming budget in promoting the region’s culture and tourism “since local authorities have themselves worked to create an unfriendly image for Małopolska,” said the Commission document.

Urynowicz also said on Twitter that the Commission informed the assembly that the declaration means negotiations over REACT-EU — additional resources available to EU countries to help recover economically from the coronavirus pandemic — are on hold.

The Commission’s press service stressed that Brussels has not suspended any funds for Poland under REACT-EU. But it added that EU governments must ensure that the funds are spent in a non-discriminatory way.