The triumph of Jarosław Kaczyński and his Law and Justice nationalist conservatives in Sunday’s election in Poland signals more rowdy division among EU leaders failing at every opportunity to master the problems of mass migration.

The last time Kaczyński was in power, a decade ago, there was nothing but trouble on the European scene. The context now is immeasurably less favourable than then. Even though he has nominated the soft-spoken Beata Szydło as prime minister, Kaczyński is expected to call the shots and pick his battles in the EU.

Kaczyński is a prickly, eurosceptic, anti-German nationalist who polarises as a matter of strategy. In other words, he has a lot in common with Viktor Orbán, the strident Hungarian prime minister who accuses the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, of moral imperialism over immigration.

Kaczyński will second that. While Orbán claims he is putting up razor-wire fences to defend Christendom from a Muslim invasion, Kaczyński’s campaign featured the use of antisemitic tropes from the 1930s re-targeted at Muslims. On the centre left in central Europe, populists playing with prejudice and the anti-German card also hold sway in Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

Uniquely in the EU, Merkel very quickly grasped six months ago that the refugee crisis is the defining issue for a generation of politicians in power in Europe, bigger than five years of agony over Greece and the single currency, or Vladimir Putin’s redrawing of European borders in Ukraine. Getting to grips with it in a concerted, European way just became harder as a result of the Polish election. Failure will encourage nationalism, populism and anti-EU movements everywhere.

The latest attempt to tackle the issue, a special summit of selected countries in Brussels on Sunday highlighted the deep-seated differences, rather than healing divisions. The summit was Merkel’s idea. For the first time on such an occasion, France was not invited. Nor was Italy, on the front line of the emergency. Nor was Turkey, on the route of most migrants now reaching the EU via the Balkans. The results justified the low expectations of the summit.

Ankara dismissively says it will be neither Europe’s policeman nor prison guard regarding refugees. Balkan governments say they will not be Europe’s buffer zone. The leaders of the EU transit countries, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia and Austria, fought among themselves.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission, who convened the summit on Merkel’s behalf, lectured the national leaders but nobody was listening. Juncker does not have voters to face.

Unusually for such a sober and cautious leader, Merkel is known to be very worried about the political climate in Europe. Kaczyński’s return will compound those concerns. Like Orbán, he cultivates a culture of grievance, playing on popular sentiment about national victimhood.

The paradox is that Poland has never had it better. Tormented by its predatory neighbours, Russia and Germany, for centuries, the country is safe, free, democratic and independent in the EU and the Nato alliance. While most of the EU went into recession following the 2008 financial crash, Poland, uniquely in the EU, kept growing. The economy has grown one third since then.

In the current seven-year financial period, Poland stands to reap €77bn (£55bn) from the EU budget, by far the biggest beneficiary. EU money has transformed the country’s infrastructure, as it has Hungary’s, over the past decade. But neither Kaczyński nor Orbán can bring themselves to say a good word about the EU.

The Poles have also been the biggest winners from the EU’s freedom-of-movement regime, with 2 million moving abroad. There are 700,000 in Britain, where David Cameron wants to curb their numbers and reduce their benefits as a central element in securing a “better deal” in Europe for the UK before putting the results to an in/out referendum.

Kaczyński will not do Cameron any favours here, although the Conservatives and Law and Justice are aligned in the same caucus in the European parliament. Other bits of Cameron’s campaign will resonate with Kaczyński. He is anti-euro, deeply suspicious of alleged German domination, and hostile to greater EU integration. But Kaczyński is highly unlikely to accept any moves against Polish workers in Britain.

Downing Street withheld its negotiating demands because of the Polish election. The result left Kaczyński stronger than the opinion polls indicated. Wily, pugnacious, and confrontational, Kaczyński looks certain to make life more difficult for Merkel, for Cameron and to lead a quartet of central European countries spoiling for a fight.

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