Poland rankles Brussels over Disappearance of World War II chemical weapons

This article was originally published in New Europe

Poland’s reputation as the EU’s enfant terrible has gone from bad to worse over recent allegations that the Polish Ministry of Justice has been involved in a state-wide cover-up.

In January 1997, Polish fishermen found 5 kilograms of World War II mustard gas in the Baltic Sea. This was reasonably presumed to have been dumped by either Nazi or Soviet forces after the end of the war.

Following recent testimony given by lawyers and ex-army officials, these chemical weapons were taken to an army unit in Rozewie on the Polish coast and have since disappeared. The Polish Ministry of Justice had been informed as early as 2006 as to the disappearance of these weapons, yet no serious investigation has been conducted to this day.

The environmental implications are enormous. As you’d expect, the storage of mustard gas, aka sulfur mustard, poses a serious health risk to anyone involved. Even the botched attempts to dispose of the chemical weapons by chucking them into the sea haven’t reduced their toxicity, nor their ability to contaminate the surrounding wildlife. Despite being doused with seawater, only the outer layer of these viscous ‘lumps’ of mustard gas hardens and detoxifies, leaving behind amber-coloured residues that still contain the active contaminants. The chemical reaction that takes place underwater has proven to have made the weapons even more toxic.

As unsuspecting fishermen have found, breaking these lumps with massive fishing nets can result in a shocking ecological disaster that destroys vast swathes of marine bed wildlife. And if accidentally caught in these nets and brought aboard, these fishermen would experience the equivalent of a World War II chemical attack on deck, with injuries including severe body burns and lung damage.

Poland’s government would understandably get quite tetchy about the prospect of an ecological disaster on its hands. The Supreme Audit Office (NIK) has lambasted the state for doing nothing about this “ticking time-bomb” lurking on its seabed. Yet investigative journalists OKO.press estimate that there are around 40 thousand tonnes of chemical ammunition off the Polish coast, containing around 13 thousand tonnes of toxic warfare agents. Blueprints for the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany had already suffered several setbacks as engineers attempt to find a way through this literal minefield in the Baltic Sea.

Credible allegations of a state-wide cover-up have surfaced, with recent testimony implicating the Polish Minister of Justice and former MEP, Zbigniew Ziobro, in having a role to play. In a legal battle which has lasted almost 14 years, Poland’s Supreme Court has got the upper hand in suppressing the startling revelations of a rag-tag bunch of Polish fishermen 23 years ago.

Upon discovering the mustard gas just off the Polish coast, the crew contacted the Polish Armed Forces, who subsequently forced the seamen to bury their findings in the ground. As the case dragged on through the Polish military and then appellate courts between 2006-2009, the fishermen and military personnel involved were stepping forward with the classic symptoms of sarcoidosis, namely reduced lung capacity.

As is standard practice in an institutional cover-up, what followed was a case of collective amnesia. Key witnesses were unable to remember the burial of the mustard gas lumps. After the army conducted spirometric (breathing) tests, clear evidence of patients suffering from sarcoidosis were simply dismissed as pre-existing genetic conditions. A painfully blasé conclusion was reached by government lawyers claiming that even if there had been some contamination, there was a negligible amount anyway.

In bringing the charges against the Polish authorities, one of the fishermen, Karol Piernicki, has found that he is up against the entire resources of the Polish state. His legal representation Bartosz Chudzinski has published the explosive claims within the court proceedings.

The case begs the question as to whether the government had simply tried to downplay the potential of an environmental catastrophe, or whether it actively sold off the weapons to less than reputable characters. Either way, failure to report the discovery of mustard gas within 180 days would be in direct contravention of international law under the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Yet the supranational body designed to enforce this, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has earned its reputation as a toothless regulator. According to Terrance Long, founder of the International Dialogue on Underwater Munitions, the organisation was designed specifically to remove countries’ liabilities for dumping toxic munitions in seas throughout the 20th century.

Long provides a grim assessment of the state of Europe’s northeastern sea. He recalls how the Lithuanian Mission to the OPCW openly admitted that 30% of all fish tested in the Baltic Sea contain warfare agents. This figure can only increase over time to 100% of the fish stocks, as such chemical weapons have a radioactive half-life of 5,000 years.

The allegations pose a clear threat to the EU’s grip on the rule of law and its environmental standards, not to mention its internal security, as no one knows who now owns these highly toxic chemicals capable of being used again in weapons. The EU has already decided to start sanctioning Poland for its controversial judicial reforms, under Article 7 of the Treaties, but is held back by Hungary’s veto.

This alleged state-wide cover-up only adds more fuel to the conflict between Brussels and Warsaw, over the government’s blatant overreach in the judiciary. Chudzinski has contacted Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), but to no avail. EU budget officials certainly wouldn’t like to know that their €3.9 million a year funding of the OPCW is going to waste.

Brussels had also been shocked by Poland’s attempt to organise a presidential election during the lockdown, and entirely by post, without parliamentary approval. Ludicrous scenes of the ruling Law and Justice Party’s candidate, Andrzej Duda, as the only one allowed to campaign for an election that would have had 0% voter turnout were fortunately avoided as the election was postponed at the last minute to June 28.

Could this scandal over Poland’s mishandling of chemical weapons be the final straw that leads to EU sanctions against Warsaw? After any EU action, Poland’s response would be predictable. It could either pursue the Clintonian tactic of “deny, deny, deny”, followed by admittance and then pointing out other countries doing the same thing. Or perhaps it could follow Russia’s 2018 World Cup bid in claiming that all records had been destroyed and so no further investigation is possible.

In any case, Poland’s attitude to Brussels and the safety of its citizens could be the EU’s own ticking time-bomb.