Radoslaw Sikorski: photo - MSZ/Flickr.
The row began on 29 March with a tweet by Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski to the Daily Telegraph's journalist Jeremy Warner: “Pity that you misquote me so absurdly but standards have clearly slipped since the time when I used to write for the DT.”
Sikorski worked as a journalist in the UK in the 1980s after graduating from Oxford University.
The foreign minister's hackles were raised by Warner's blog post headlined, 'Even now, after all that's happened to Cyprus, they’re queuing up to join the euro,' referring to Prime Minister Donald Tusk's statement last week confirming that Poland still aimed to enter the eurozone, though after the 2015 general election.
The Daily Telegraph's journalist also mentions a statement by Radek Sikorski in the blog post, claiming that he has even bolder EU ambitions than PM Tusk.
“Once in the euro, [Sikorski] said a few months ago, Poland would quickly displace Britain as one of the three most influential countries in Europe. This is what the European “project” does to politicians: it puffs them up with their own sense of self-importance to the point where they can no longer think straight.”
Clearly irritated by remarks about being “puffed up”, Minister Sikorski tweeted, “Please give source [of remarks about Poland displacing UK]. What I did say was that Poland could join the top table in a decade or so if UK left the EU”.
Sikorski has been telling journalists and parliament recently that Poland's diplomatic weight within the EU is linked to its growing economic clout and Warsaw's influence in Brussels will increase as its economy develops.
When the Telegraph's journalist tweeted back that the EU Observer was the source he was using, Sikorski shot back on Twitter: “Well, EUObserver exaggerated what I said and you exagerrated [sic] what EUObserver related”.
The minister also supplied a link to an article, dated 24 January this year in the Gazeta Wyborcza daily, where Sikorski is discussing British prime minister David Cameron's announcement that he intends to hold a national referendum on Britain's membership of the EU after he renegotiates terms.
The article quotes Sikorski telling the RMF FM radio station that, “it is feasible that in a decade Poland could join a group of decision makers that the UK abandoned. We could be among 3 to 5 countries which have most say in the union.” (pg)