Poland’s new prime minister has rarely ventured outside his country’s borders in his 57 years. So Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s brief trip to Brussels on Wednesday – his first foreign visit since taking office in July – was something of a personal as well as a political event.

By all accounts, his courtesy call on José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, went well enough. But Mr Kaczynski ducked out of making a speech and did nothing to assuage growing concerns among his country’s European Union partners about the current direction of Polish politics.