Messages in the Media - University of Toronto

contributors blamed the 2007 Lisbon Treaty for “narrowing
the mandate of the presidency.” 8
- Gazeta Wyborcza, on the other hand, stated that “given
the Eurozone crisis, the half-year Polish presidency was
probably the toughest period in the history of this enterprise.”
9 The newspaper also noticed that there were “no
fireworks, but also no mishaps.” 10
- Wprost magazine tackled the subject from a slightly different
perspective. Its editors drew attention to the geopolitics
of East Central Europe, and postulated that the
Polish presidency in the EU, seven years after accession,
had to be three-dimensional. It should have promoted
Poland, provided East Central regional leadership, and
assisted internationally as the EU faced the financial recession.
11
The Bailout of Greece
Concurrently, Greek financial crisis put into question Poland’s
accession to the Eurozone, and Eurozone’s chances of
survival. Rzeczpospolita concluded that “pessimists talk
about the break-up of the Eurozone, cautious optimists say
that only Greece will abandon the Eurozone. Optimists,
whose numbers have been shrinking, commented that the
Eurozone will come out of the crisis even stronger, due to
an ever-growing fiscal union between member states.” 12
The rhetoric presented by the newspaper has to be perceived
as EU-cautious.
- Newsweek Polska debated the €200 billion needed in order
to rescue the Eurozone. According to its source, a
Polish diplomat in Brussels, a number of countries from
Eastern Europe – the Czech Republic and Bulgaria – declared
that they would not financially support richer EU
countries. Moreover, Hungary and Romania had no input,
because they were in the process of repaying their IMF
loans. 13 Countries outside of the Eurozone questioned the
burden that they would have to bear for the principle of
collective responsibility, responsibility for problems
created elsewhere.
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