Михал Каминьский: политический путь и взгляды

Polish politician (born 1972)

Michał Tomasz Kamiński (born 28 March 1972) is a Polish politician and a member of the Senate with the Union of European Democrats. He was chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformists in the European Parliament from July 2009 until March 2011. Kamiński was a founder member of the Christian National Union (ZChN) in 1989, and served on its board from 1995 to 2001. Kamiński was elected to the Sejm in 1997 for Solidarity Electoral Action, which included ZChN. In 2001, he joined the Right Alliance (PP), which merged with Law and Justice (PiS) the following year, having been reelected on the PP PiS joint ticket in 2001. He was elected to the European Parliament in 2004, representing Warsaw. He stepped down to become Secretary of State for Media Relations in Chancellery of the President. He was returned as an MEP in the 2009 election, and was elected chairman of the new European Conservatives and Reformists group. In November 2010, he left PiS to form the more liberal Poland Comes First (PJN); while remaining in the ECR, he stepped down as chairman in March 2011.

Kamiński attended XLIX Liceum Ogólnokształcące in Warsaw, and then studied International Relations and Diplomacy at the University of Warsaw. He first entered politics as a teenager, joining the National Revival of Poland (Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski) when he was 15. The present day NOP is considered to be anti Semitic, though Kamiński has defended his membership of the organisation, arguing that it was a symbol of his opposition to communism and that the party was not anti Semitic when he was a member. In 1989 he was one of the founding members of the Christian National Union, the youngest founder at 17 years of age. He was a radio and newspaper journalist and radio producer in Bydgoszcz and Łomża. He frequently published in Catholic journals and newspapers and before 1989 his work appeared in the underground press. During the 1995 Polish presidential election, he was press spokesman for Hanna Gronkiewicz Waltz. Kamiński says he taught himself English by listening to illegal BBC World Service broadcasts.

He was elected to the Third Sejm on 21 September 1997 as part of the Solidarity Electoral Action (Akcja Wyborcza Solidarność) grouping of parties for the Łomża Voivodeship, and later Podlaskie Voivodeship. In 1999, he visited London to present a gorget embossed with an image of the Virgin Mary to former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet along with Marek Jurek and the journalist Tomasz Wołek. "This was the most important meeting of my whole life. Gen Pinochet was clearly moved and extremely happy with our visit," Kamiński told the BBC's Polish service. In the same year, Kamiński won a journalists' award for being the best speaker in the Sejm. However, he later defended his visit to see General Pinochet, saying "we lived in this country subject to communist propaganda. We had little access to the real information, so for many Poles – not just me – this defence of Pinochet was across centre right political parties in Poland and other eastern European countries at that time. It was my mistake, I admit it. I think every politician has the right to some mistakes. I made this mistake by just reversing the communist propaganda. It was a mistake that decent people of the left made when they were living under right wing dictatorships – the kind of mistake where you just reverse the black and white propaganda. Today I know much more about Pinochet and I will never call him a hero again. It’s a question of context". In July 2000, Kamiński used the word "pedał" (a derogatory Polish word for homosexual, usually translated into English as "fag" or "queer") in a TV interview to refer to gay rights campaigners. When asked by the reporter if such a term is offensive, his reply translates as: "That's how people speak, what should I say? They are fags." In a 2009 interview with Iain Dale he admitted the word was offensive and that he would never use it again. He confirmed he has homosexual friends and stated that he respects "the right [of gay people] to be treated with civility". In the same interview he expressed his pride that Poland was one of the first countries in Europe to decriminalize homosexuality and said that he has nothing against civil partnership legislation and "would consider voting yes" if he was still a member of the Polish Parliament. He became a member of the Right Alliance (Przymierze Prawicy) in 2001, and then joined the new conservative party Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość) in 2002. Kamiński was re elected to the Sejm, for its Fourth Term, on 23 September 2001, representing the constituency of Białystok. Law and Justice increased its Parliamentary number from 18 to 45. He was a member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee on Foreign Affairs. In 2001 he was alleged by the Anti Defamation League of organising to prevent a commemoration of the World War II murder of Polish Jews by Polish gentiles in the town of Jedwabne. He has been quoted as saying that no apology should be forthcoming to the Jews of Jedwabne – until Jews had themselves apologised for their part in Soviet atrocities during the Soviet occupation, an idea not uncommon in parts of central and eastern Europe which had been part of the Soviet empire. He said "My position is that there were acts of collaboration of the Jewish people with the Soviet army when the Soviet army came to Poland. It’s a fact. It’s a historical fact If you are asking the Polish nation to apologise for the crime made in Jedwabne, you would require from the whole Jewish nation to apologise for what some Jewish Communists did in Eastern Poland". Then Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski issued an apology for the atrocity, but the issue was hugely divisive, especially as dozens of witness statements made by Jews after the war stated it was the Germans that committed the atrocity and Hermann Schaper was convicted on sample counts of crimes against humanity immediately before and after the Jedwabne atrocity; moreover spent German ammunition was found at the crime scene, underneath a statue of Lenin known to have been buried on July 10, 1941. As the deputy in the Sejm responsible for the area, Kamiński expressed his opposition to a generalised apology, arguing that the individuals responsible should instead be singled out as criminals. In an interview with Martin Bright, political editor of the UK's Jewish Chronicle in 2009, he said "From the very beginning I was saying as a human being, as a Pole, that Jedwabne was a terrible crime, unfortunately committed by the Polish people. My point was from the very start: we are ashamed of these people, we have to condemn them, we have to judge them if they are still alive. But I don’t want to take the whole responsibility for this crime for the whole Polish nation". In an interview with political blogger Iain Dale, he said "if there were any doubts about my past I will give you the ultimate argument. When I became Secretary of State of Poland, I received a top NATO clearance, so it’s not about Polish politics now – it’s about a NATO clearance. I don’t think there can be any doubts about my political views and my past if I can receive a top NATO clearance."

His views are described as "Euro sceptic, free market and Atlanticist" by Daniel Hannan MEP, who also described Kamiński as "the closest thing to a British Tory outside the Carlton Club." Kamiński has spoken of his support for the Treaty of Lisbon which he believes "guarantees Poland's sovereignty". He has also spoken in favour of the Common Agricultural Policy. Nevertheless, in his debut speech in the European Parliament as ECR chairman he called on the EU political leaders to respect the Irish "no" vote to the Lisbon Treaty.

In February 2018, the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki stated that "there were Jewish perpetrators" of the Holocaust, "not only German perpetrators." Kamiński said he hopes Morawiecki "is being stupid and not ruthless." Prime Minister Morawiecki also paid respect to the Holy Cross Mountains Brigade, a right wing Polish militia that, according to some historians, collaborated with Nazi Germany. Kamiński told The Jerusalem Post that the Holy Cross Mountains Brigade is "the only possible part of Polish resistance who actively collaborated with Germans and he is visiting their graves and I cannot understand it." In March 2019, the low circulation right wing weekly Tylko Polska ran a headline "How to spot a Jew" on its front page alongside a picture of Jan Gross. When he saw the newspaper being sold in the Sejm, Kamiński said that it was an "absolute scandal" that "filthy texts, as if taken from Nazi newspapers" were sold at the parliament.

In his private life, Kamiński's passions include books, foreign languages as well as football. He lives in the Warsaw neighbourhood of Wawer.