The black stork is a rare appearance among European birds. Though more than half of the global population breeds in Europe, today its numbers in Europe hover somewhere between 8,000 and 12,000. The secretive animal thrives best in damp primeval forests of the kind found in the valley of the 2 Eastern Poland. Together with other endangered species like the short-toed snakeeagle and the white-backed woodpecker, the cousin of the better-known and more widespread white stork turns the Rospuda valley into a unique peat land that makes the heart of many nature conservationists beat faster.

The exceptional status of the area did not, however, deter the Polish government from approving the construction of a motorway right through the Rospuda Valley as part of the Via Baltica (E67) running from Prague to Finland. The European Commission had no intention of allowing such an affront to its Natura 2000 network to which the valley belonged. It had designated the valley as a Special Protection Area under the Wild Birds Directive, and it had also protected it under the Habitat Directive. In March 2007 the European Court of Justice forbade the intended construction through the valley. The Polish Kaczynski government temporarily complied with the verdict by a building stop for the length of the breeding season ending on 1 August. As July neared its end the Polish Ministry of Transport prepared for the resumption of construction. Irritated, the European Commission threatened to impose a multi-million fine by cutting its Via Baltica subsidy to Poland. What could have become the first time a member state ignored a European Court of Justice verdict, ended with Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski's indefinite suspension of the E67 extension through the valley.

The standoff between Brussels and Warsaw aptly illustrates Poland's position within the EU as a “notorious producer of dissonants in the European concert” under the Kaczynski government. The episode clearly relates to the debate on the relationship between the EU and its member states. The relation between the EU and its citizens is at stake too.