EU rebuffs Polish president on death penalty

BRUSSELS, Aug 2: The European Union today rebuffed Poland's conservative President Lech Kaczynski over his plan to campaign for a return of the death penalty in the 25-nation bloc.

''The death penalty is not compatible with European values,'' European Commission spokesman Steffan de Rynck told a news briefing in response to a question about Kaczynski's views on capital punishment.

Kaczynski, whose identical twin is Poland's prime minister, said last week the EU would come to see that the death penalty was justified for murder.

''Countries who give up this penalty award an unimaginable advantage to the criminal over his victim, the advantage of life over death,'' he told public radio on Friday.

Poland scrapped capital punishment soon after the fall of communism in 1989.

Abolishing the death penalty is a pre-condition for starting membership negotiations with the EU.

Kaczynski's and his twin brother Jaroslaw's party, the Law and Justice (PiS), won power last year promising a tough stance against corruption and crime in the biggest of ten nations - mainly ex-communist - that joined the EU in 2004.

Kaczynski's traditionalist and nationalist rhetoric has alarmed Warsaw's EU partners, raising concerns they will drive Poland away from the European mainstream.

REUTERS