The tragic death of a president calls for words of respect and appreciation. But Lech Kaczynski's euro-sceptic stance and his failure to understand Brussels' diplomatic conventions repeatedly drove European government leaders to the point of desperation.

In 2005, distrust of the political establishment and a series of corruption scandals among Polish politicians drove the electorate to choose Lech Kaczynski as president, shortly after his twin brother Jaroslaw had won the parliamentary elections.

Together they pledged to cleanse the country of its perceived post-communist power structure and start a “moral revolution” based on conservative and Roman Catholic values.
 
Whether the issue was abortion or gay rights, the Kaczynskis saw “Europe” as a threat to those values. The Kaczynski era confirmed Poland's reputation as an ultra-conservative Catholic nation and produced a series of clashes with Brussels about European legislation.


Trouble
The Kaczynskis were synonymous with stubbornness. Poland had only just become a member of the European Union and was already proving troublesome. For a long time the Polish president refused to ratify the new European constitution, after he had already caused problems with his objections to the voting ratios in the treaty.
 
One of his initial objections to the treaty was the position of Germany, which Kaczynski regarded as too influential. Distrust of Germany and Russia, the two major powers which had repeatedly occupied or divided Poland in centuries past, seemed to be at the heart of the Kaczynski twins' foreign policy.


Grim

As mayor of Warsaw, Lech Kaczynski had already called for reparations from Germany for the destruction of the Polish capital during World War Two. During his presidency he constantly emphasized the “danger” from Heimatsvertriebene (those expelled from their native land), who he claimed were out to take back pre-war German territory from Poland.
 
The populism and grim determination with which the Kaczynskis plunged their country into conservatism did not have the expected results at the polls. Their Law and Justice Party was defeated in early elections in 2007 by the Civic Platform of the current prime minister, Donald Tusk. Jaroslaw Kaczynski returned to the opposition benches.
 
Under Tusk, Poland was set to adopt a more pro-European course. But the powers and rights of veto afforded to President Kaczynski by the constitution enabled him to frustrate the new government on several issues. He blocked the planned introduction of the euro in Poland, for example, a move which was in any case torpedoed by the economic crisis.

The presidency's constitutional rights in the field of foreign policy meant Poland now had two voices at European level, which caused confusion in Brussels.
 
Katyn
One of the most painful issues affecting Poland's diplomatic relations with Russia is Katyn, the forest near Smolensk in the west of Russia where the Red Army killed an estimated 22,000 Polish officers taken prisoner at the start of World War Two. Until the 1990s Russia continued to deny responsibility for the massacre.

The commemoration ceremony in Katyn, which President Kaczynski was on his way to when his government aircraft crashed during the landing in Smolensk, was to have meant a new step in improving relations between the two countries.
 
Lech Kaczynski looked to be heading for defeat in the forthcoming presidential elections. The parliamentary speaker Bronislaw Komorowski, who was expected to be the Civic Platform's candidate, will now take over as acting president until early elections can be held.