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The Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, did not come to Parliament yesterday to ease tensions with the rest of the European Union, but to put on the table the essential debate on the origin and destination of its sovereignty and its legitimacy. In his long-awaited speech at the Strasbourg plenary session, he once again maintained without any kind of half measures that “EU law follows the national rule and this applies in all Member States”, which has earned him an answer angry from almost all the spokespersons of the groups, but especially from the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, who told her that “we are not going to tolerate putting the European legal system at risk,” and said that It will take Poland to the Luxembourg Court and apply the conditionality mechanism to limit the arrival of European funds. The president acknowledged that the situation created by the nationalist government in Warsaw “will have consequences for the Poles.” The first of them, that “without independent courts your rights are in danger.”
The ruling of the Polish Constitutional Court in which – at the request of the government itself – it is stated that the Constitution of this country is above the European treaties, it has caused a real political earthquake and not only in Brussels. Everyone has appreciated that the representative of a government controlled by a nationalist and demagogic party such as PiS (“Law and Justice”) has agreed to participate personally in the debate, although Morawiecki did so to insist that “the countries are the sovereign European, they are the owners of the Treaties and it is the Member States that establish the competences within the EU. In the Treaties we have given many powers to the European Union but not everything. There are many areas of law that remain the competence of the Member States ”, which in his opinion justifies maintaining the prevalence of national law over European law. ‘EU law is below national law. The EU is not a state and the countries represent European sovereignty and are the ones who decide.
The discussion on an essential aspect that in the EU had been considered clarified for a long time, since without the prevalence of European legislation – and what the Polish called the “monopoly” of the European Court of Luxembourg – it would be impossible for community institutions to continue to function and that countries could resolve their differences in a civilized manner.
The Polish representative said that they were being “blackmailed” and that they felt treated as a second-class country within the EU, taking into account that other constitutional courts had handed down rulings that also dealt with the issue of the latitude of national constitutions and the Community law and believes that “pretending there are no problems has bad effects. Citizens are neither blind nor deaf, but they are going to lose confidence ‘in the European institutions.
Regarding his position on Poland’s membership of the EU, Morawiecki summed it up like this: ‘Here we are, this is our place and my government is part of the pro-European majority in PolandBut that does not imply that citizens do not have more and more doubts about the effectiveness of the EU in solving their problems ”.
In his turn to speak, the spokesman of the popular group, Manfred Weber responded with a warning: “I understand that you do not want to talk about a ‘Polexit’, but if you continue to ignore the preponderance of European law, you are clearly paving the way for it” since the EU “is a serious organization based on legal certainty.” The intervention of the socialist Irtxe García ran through similar arguments taking into account that “when you say you are not going to respect the rules, you are putting yourself at the starting door.” Alik Azmani, from the liberal group, was also very harsh in recommending that the Commission formally block financial aid to Poland: “You have to bear the consequences of your discussions and explain them clearly to the citizens.”
Former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt reproached him for defending “the sinister game” that his Government is playing and reminded him that the two specific aspects indicated by the Constitutional Court ruling, the mention of “an increasingly close union “And the prevalence of the Luxembourg judges” were the two essential arguments invoked by the authors of Brexit. ” The spokeswoman for the Greens, Ska Keller, defined the position of the Polish nationalist government as “an attack on the very existence of the EU.”
As expected, The entire Eurosceptic spectrum came out in defense of the Polish Government and of the theses that do not see in the EU more than a simple international organization in which everyone defends their interests, but they were a thunderous minority. The resolution that the European Parliament is preparing to vote on Thursday will have no problem to be approved.
In Luxembourg, the European Affairs ministers also met yesterday to prepare for the European Council next Thursday, in which the issue raised by Poland will appear strongly among the leaders. In this previous meeting, the Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, participated, who made it clear that “there is a primacy of EU law, but not only over national laws, but also over the provisions of the different constitutions, and it was not an imposition of the European institutions or of Brussels, as we have heard sometimes, but it was a clear decision, a free decision, of all the Member States when they decide to form part of the Union.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism