By GRAHAM BOWLEY
BRUSSELS - When Polish members of the European Parliament placed an anti-abortion display in a parliamentary corridor in Strasbourg, France, recently, Ana Gomes, a Socialist legislator from Portugal, felt compelled to act, she said.
The display showed children in a concentration camp, linking abortion and Nazi crimes. "We found this deeply offensive," Ms. Gomes said. "We tried to remove it." A loud scuffle ensued as she and the Poles traded insults before the display was bundled away by Parliament guards.
But the matter does not end there. It was the latest skirmish in what some here see as an incipient culture war in the heart of Europe, a clash of values that has intensified since countries from Central and Eastern Europe that are experiencing an increase in the influence of the Roman Catholic Church joined the European Union last year.
In the 732-seat European Parliament, and more widely in the European Union, the clash extends beyond abortion to issues like women's rights and homosexuality.
"New groups have come in from Poland, the Czech Republic, Latvia, and Catholicism is certainly becoming a very angry voice against what it sees as a liberal E.U.," said Michael Cashman, 54, a European Parliament member from Britain who has campaigned for gay rights. "On women's rights and gay equality, we are fighting battles that we thought we had won years ago."
With a population of 40 million, Poland is the biggest of the 10 states that joined the European Union last year. It is still uncertain, 19 months later, how Poland, a formerly Communist and overwhelmingly Catholic nation, will fit in with the other members on issues from foreign policy to economic management.
However, since the election in October of President Lech Kaczynski, a conservative defender of family values and a critic of abortion and homosexuality, concerns are being voiced that, on social policy at least, Poland is on a collision course with Brussels.
"This is for real," said Christopher Bobinski, director of Unia I Polska, a pro-European research organization in Warsaw. "This is a very reactionary, conservative group of people that have taken the helm, and on these issues we are going in the reverse direction to the direction everyone else in Europe is going."
The effects of Poland's religious conservatism were felt in 2003, during the drafting of the European Constitution, when Poland took the lead in pressing for the preamble to refer to Europe's Christian heritage. After much debate, the reference was not included.
Then, in November 2004, Polish diplomats played a major behind-the-scenes role in the fight to save Rocco Buttiglione, an Italian nominee for the European Commission whose remarks about women and homosexuality at a European Parliament hearing were widely regarded as offensive.
Although the Parliament rejected Mr. Buttiglione's candidacy, the incident provided the first glimpse of a broad-based clash of cultures.
Poland's impact on the European debate has, of course, been economic as well as social. Its fast-growth, low-wage and low-tax system is perceived as a threat by the stodgier, high-unemployment economies of Germany and France.
West European worries have also been fueled by suspicions in the foreign policy arena since Poland sided with the Bush administration on the war in Iraq nearly three years ago.
A year ago, Poland played a stronger role than desired by some countries, including Germany and France, in arguing for firmer European Union support for the pro-democracy presidential candidate in the disputed elections in Ukraine.
Concerns about American influence on Poland grew in November when Human Rights Watch charged that Poland was a host country in a network of secret C.I.A. prisons for terrorism suspects. European Union foreign ministers have asked the United States about that report. The Polish government denies the allegation but says it is happy to have the European Union investigate.
"We need to put a protective wing around some of our new countries that are quite unused to U.S. bullying," said Sarah Ludford, and a Liberal member of the European Parliament from Britain, referring to the report of covert prisons.
From the perspective of the cold war and decades of Soviet bullying, Poland's leanings toward the United States may be understandable. In a similar fashion, Poles adhered to the Roman Catholic Church for comfort during the Communist years.
But such understanding has done nothing to ease the trepidation felt in the European Union toward Poland's new rightist government. This was highlighted when the European Commission reminded Poland - on the morning after Mr. Kaczynski was elected - of its duties to abide by European laws on sex discrimination and the death penalty.
Mr. Kaczynski's victory on Oct. 23 was unexpected. His Law and Justice Party came from behind after opinion polls predicted a victory for the liberal Civic Platform. Now, his party has a minority government and, analysts say, relies on the support of small anti-European groups, like the rightist Catholic League of Polish Families, to exercise power.
In forming the new government, Mr. Kaczynski, a former mayor of Warsaw who banned the city's annual gay pride rally, has abolished the post of minister for women's interests, making Poland the rare European country without such a position.
In a broader sense, Mr. Bobinski said, the new government is creating a generally less-tolerant atmosphere, as illustrated recently when Poznan became the latest city to ban its gay pride march.
"We want to see Europe based on a Christian ethic," said Maciej Giertych, one of 10 European Parliament members from the League of Polish Families Party. "We accept the teachings of the Catholic Church on all moral issues. If you want to know our opinions, read the opinions of the Catholic Church."
Mr. Giertych, who helped stage the anti-abortion display in Strasbourg, said its removal by force was a reminder of the intolerance to debate once shown by the Communists in his country. "It reminds us of what we had in Poland before 1989," he said.
But if Mr. Giertych wants to bring his views into the wider councils of the European Union, liberal members of Parliament are ready to stop him. "I would rather we had moved on," said Ms. Gomes, the Portuguese legislator, "but if we have to have that ideological and political fight, then I am ready."
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