Leader of Poland's opposition party says Ukraine will not join EU unless it changes course

Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of Poland's opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, has called on party members in a letter to block Ukraine's accession to the EU until Kyiv changes its policy on "the cult of Bandera and other criminals and the glorification of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists".

Source: Polish news channel Polsat News; European Pravda

Details: In the letter to PiS members, Kaczyński said that if the party wins the next election, it will not allow Ukraine to join the EU unless Kyiv changes course.

Quote: "Ukraine cannot be admitted to the European Union unless it fully rejects the course it has chosen today… Poland, in its own interests, but also in the interests of European countries and, moreover, in the interests of all Christian civilisation, cannot allow Banderism, one of the most criminal and inhuman ideologies, which today shapes the consciousness of the Ukrainian nation, to be admitted into this community."

More details: Kaczyński also urged his party colleagues to use all available means to "block the actions of Tusk's government aimed at integrating Ukraine with the European Union on privileged terms".

He pointed out that "no sovereign state can tolerate, even to the slightest degree, genocidal acts against its own nation".

Kaczyński also claimed that Poland and its citizens had borne and continued to bear "enormous financial costs for maintaining the Ukrainian state and its army".

Quote: "Ukrainian taxpayers, without broad external support, particularly from Poland, are unable to maintain a fighting army and ensure the basic functioning of their state."

More details: Kaczyński said that despite this situation, "an incredibly brazen and contemptuous act was committed: naming an important Ukrainian army unit, which Poles ultimately pay for, after the extraordinarily cruel murderers of the Polish population in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia".

For reference: The Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA, was a nationalist paramilitary organisation that fought for Ukrainian independence during and after World War II, primarily against Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Poland believes that the UPA was responsible for what it considers the genocide of Poles during the Volyn (Volhynia) tragedy, a series of events that led to the ethnic cleansing of the Polish and Ukrainian populations in 1943. The tragedy was part of a long-standing rivalry between Ukrainians and Poles in what is now Ukraine's west.

Background:

• Kaczyński already argued that Poland should start blocking new rounds of talks in Ukraine's EU accession process amid a controversy over a Ukrainian unit being named after heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
• Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha proposed "a package of anti-crisis steps" during a meeting with his Polish counterpart Radosław Sikorski in Warsaw on 3 July, aimed at easing tensions between the two countries.

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