 Europe and the European Union have been undergoing a lot of contradictions recently. And at the centre of all these contradictions and crises is the country of Poland. So on the one hand we've had the fact that Poland has been on a clash with the European Union about its judicial system, about the fact that its abortion laws, its laws regarding the LGBT community are extremely oppressive. We in fact recently saw an incident where due to very regressive abortion law, a woman died, a woman in her thirties died because she could not get the abortion at the right time. There have been mass protests in Poland over this issue as well as on the issue of LGBT rights. And these issues have been condemned by the European Union. On the other hand Poland has also become a bit of a front line as refugees from Belarus have been moving towards Poland. Now there are many refugees, a few hundred refugees on the border between Poland and Belarus. Poland has apparently detained some of these refugees. It has heavily militarised its borders. It is a very crisis like situation. On this point though the European Union is very much on Poland's side. How do we make sense of all these contradictions? How do we understand Poland's relationship with the EU? And what is the position of the EU in general? We'll be discussing all this in Mapping Fault Lines. We're joined by Prabir Pulkaj sir. Like I said there's a lot of issues around this one small country but let's maybe take one issue that is right now in the headlines or grabbing the headlines which is the issue of refugees itself. Now we know that many European countries have a very problematic attitude to say the least about refugees. Poland falling perfectly in that category and despite all the EU's disagreements with Poland the EU has jumped to the country's defence. So how do we understand on the one hand this issue of refugees itself and generally the kind of positions Poland is taking? You know what you said about Poland being a front line state against Belarus and Russia on one hand. On the other hand the fractures it has with the European Union with respect to a number of human rights issues and of course one of the central issues which has been there for a long time is the abortion rights issue. It's interesting that the refugee issue has come to occupy currently the centre stage in the way that European Union completely Poland on this issue and also claimed that Belarus and Mr Putin himself I don't know how they will see reach that conclusion is behind this attempt to embarrass Poland by pushing refugees into European Union of which members one of the member states is of course Poland. Though as you've also said the courts the constitutional court in European Union has said Poland is in violation of the EU charter and therefore they should be penalised by X pounds per X euros per day and so on. So that battle continues of what the inward trajectory of Poland is and what European Union claims its democratic values are. But behind this and the refugee issue we should also add one more point. Here is Poland who actually sent troops as a part of NATO to Afghanistan. They also as other European countries behind the destruction of Libya and also the runious war that was imposed on Syria Bashar al-Assad's government. Now all of that of course creates refugees, Iraq invasion creates refugees. Now what they're willing to do is to destroy these countries through war and at the same time say that if the refugees they should not enter European Union. We have the right to send soldiers anywhere in the world we want fight any war we want of course in company of the United States generally not alone. But the pushback the blowback should not come to European Union. This is one part. The US has protection. Why? Because the US has oceans surrounding it. It's really a continental sized island if you will. Now given that it is protected by oceans European Union is not. It's a part of the Eurasian land mass and of course if whether you take Afghanistan, whether you take Syria, whether you take Lebanon, Libya or even other countries in that region which is facing semi-wars or breakups of the countries themselves that they of course do tend to go towards European Union. Because as refugees they think their condition would still be better than being in the midst of a war-torned country. Given this European Union of course now is saying how Belarus is the culprit but they're not willing to accept their ruinous wars, their invasions has anything to do with the refugee problem and in this particular case the refugees have come from Syria. So again this is the same war on Syria which led to Turkish saying that European Union will have to accommodate the refugees. We can't take more than one million that we already have so where will the rest go? They should go to European Union and of course European Union essentially paid a huge bribe to Turkey in order to not to let that happen. So Belarus is really in some sense called their bluff by saying okay you have this humanitarian policies. Some people are coming here, they want to go to European Union, why should we stop them? Of course they have come by flight, they booked the tickets and they want to go to European Union. What is our role in this? Now we can call it hypocrisy probably is but nevertheless it shows them the much bigger hypocrisy of the European Union. Absolutely. In this context of course Poland also part of another controversy which is regarding a very important issue which is natural gas supplies, the energy future of the entire European continent itself. So we've talked about this before especially while discussing the Nord Stream Pipelines, the role Ukraine, Poland etc. playing. And even now on this issue there seems to be some amount of you know back and forth and attempt to actually target Russia once again by both Ukraine and Poland in different ways. So can you talk a bit about that as well? Ukraine as you said we have talked about Ukraine claims that Russia should send more gas through Ukraine also give it more gas and it should not send gas to Nord Stream as much as it is doing right now. Ukraine gets a share of the cut that's really the argument as transit fees. Russia has said whatever we have committed we have said we are not cutting down anything. So when is the question of sending more through Ukraine arise? So this is the Ukrainian picture and again these are the same set of people who would like to fight with Russia but want the transit fees because their economy is at a stage which is very critical and the only free money they can get unless they get it from EU is going to be to transit taxes that they impose on Russia and European Union for transferring gas. Coming to Poland and that's it again even more interesting question because Poland has gone to court against an agreement it itself has reached it had reached with Russia regarding gas supplies and it said it was too high and the European Union the European Union court gave a judgment saying it violates EU laws which says you can't have long term contracts like this it has to be based virtually on the spot market or variations thereof. Therefore this contract is void and the amount of money that Russia had to pay as a consequence as damages quite high it is in billions of dollars or billions of euros whatever you want to call the currency there. So now Poland has taken a position that here the price of gas has gone up now we want to return to the agreement which we had opposed from which we got actually money penalty because what they are being forced to pay now as spot prices means it's much higher and in effect whatever penalty Russia might have paid they are getting more money out of Poland today. By virtue of Poland walking out of the contract not only walking out of the contract going and claiming damages and reparations from Russia for high prices of that contract. So it's interesting when it suits you want you want to go back to the contract but when it didn't suit you because you have to pay higher prices then you don't want that contract. The essential argument that countries those who are gas producers have been saying is gas prices should not be based on spot pricing but they need to be based on longer term pricing for the simple reason gas prices can go up and down. But the infrastructure required to supply gas or produce gas both of them have to need or require stability of prices and that's that is why long term forward contracts were reached. Now this is the market fundamentalism that even when everybody understands that gas and oil require infrastructure therefore require a certain stability. They are not like everyday commodities therefore this pricing should not follow the pricing for say soaps this part of it is not understood by quote unquote economists who believe that everything should be treated as a commodity based on supply and demand and the most efficient allocation of resources is to such supply and demand pricing except that if you have a shortage because it's an essential commodity you require it for heating if you are in a cold country otherwise you freeze we saw that in Texas. And this is the essential issue whether it's electricity and that was the Texas case or it is the question of natural gas these require longer term framing of the pricing issue rather than the spot market. We saw the disaster in Texas earlier we had the similar disaster based on Enron's influence Maline influence in California that is United States the headquarters shall we say of market economics. Now we have the same case in Eastern Europe and Poland like crying foul when it has to pay a high price and demanding that it should be allowed to anchor its price to the spot market when the prices go low having your cake and eating it too. Absolutely. Premier in this context also finally an important question about the European Union itself one of the aspects we talked about is the fact that the European Union is going all over the place in terms of positions on the one hand there is or there was at least some attempt to engage with Russia on the other hand support for countries like Poland rivalries are issues with countries like Poland how does the EU deal with the United States. So all these questions really you know coming to the fore even as Angela Merkel is now left she was one of the pillars of the European project as it is. So how do we see the European Union's position it stands and its relative strength today and what really is the way ahead for it. European Union politically seems to be not clear whether it is coming or going if you see what its relationship with the United States is does it want to remain as a NATO partner and part of a military block. Does it see its future in Eurasia economically that's where it seems to be otherwise going because already you have the you have the Belt Road Initiative which connects it to China you have the gas grid gas pipelines which connects it to Russia for hydrocarbon resources. Whatever you talk about LNG the question is LNG will always be against spot pricing. So therefore it's much more likely to be stable if you rely on the gas grid and the gas infrastructure but that's Russia. So does its future lie with Russia China economically while of course there will be competition because after all there's independent countries and EU still a big economic block still manufactures a whole bunch of things which of course others other countries will lead. So what how does it see this relationship while also reflecting on the fact that militarily as long as Soviet Union was there that it was a really a part of NATO and the frontline state vis-a-vis United States and Soviet Union and in that the border really was at that time the socialist block. Now socialist block has fallen apart a bunch of countries on the borders of Russia are quite anti-Russia they were probably not very pro-socialist either because number of the countries had very strong right wing forces aligned with Germany during the war whether it's Croatia whether it is even a section of Poland for that matters and of course Ukraine is a well known example. So if you take all of that into account European Union has to determine what its position vis-a-vis now the Belt Road initiative or Russia is does it look Eurasia wise or does it look towards the Atlantic and that is the problem that they have. They started as Atlantic pass because they were all sea pass really that's where the colonial empires came from but now the colonial empires are not there. The relationship with the United States what is the stake they have in going with the United States is an open question because militarily they may think they have okay they have this umbrella of the United States which is why Trump wanted more money from them that protection money we protect him. But at the same time the United States is no longer a manufacturing power so economically where do they go is the question and I think this is the crux of the matter. We saw for instance Macron recently being very unhappy because of the submarine deal they are trying to put that behind them the US deal. But if we look at it Germany is of course as you said the linchpin of the European project the EU project and Germany we have a hawk who is a Green Party member who wants to nuke Russia for some reason or the other. He said we should be prepared to use nuclear bombs. Now you know the essential point that has come time and again in this kind of discussion is the nuclear weapon is an unusable weapon because if you do then the retaliatory strike will destroy the whole of human civilization. So this is a well known principle on the basis of which we have always argued and countries have accepted de facto if not de jure America never accepted this position on paper. That first strike is not something that can work and therefore the so called balance of terror and therefore the so called you know the arms limitation treaties. They never agreed to arms disarmament but arms limitation and also giving up defensive shields because then if you give up defensive if you put in defensive shields the possibility of offensive weapons and new offensive weapons arise. This all infrastructure of thinking and I'm not going to call it only of treaties but the infrastructure of thinking how we thought the basis of that architecture of thinking is being given up when we have Germany. Not exactly a nuclear power. Does it have nuclear bombs saying that they should NATO should use obviously maybe France's bombs or American bombs to use nuclear bombs against Russia for some if a war takes place. So this whole argument that the need first use is actually qualitatively something which is new and this also seems to be anchored to the question you're raising. Is it that they're trying to who those Baltic states or Poland, Hungary who are the borders closer to Russia saying we are as much as hawkish as the Americans are. So is it competitive politics of trying to keep this new new entrance to EU and possibly future partners to EU. Is it therefore a part of competition with China and Russia aligning with the United States or do they look forward to a different Eurasian arrangement in which at the moment the United States is wooing all these right wing countries on the borders of Russia to be a part of their larger NATO project. So I think Germany as you have rightly said is not clear where it wants to be and I would say it's a fundamentally the choice of European Union countries is do they want peace and economic growth for Eurasia or do they want competition and military competition is that the key that's a key issue before them. And at the moment it's not clear that Europe has a leadership. European Union has a leadership which can really strike a new path for itself. Thank you so much. Thank you Praveer. We'll be keeping track of all these issues on mapping fault lines in the coming weeks. Until then keep watching news click.