The dispute between Brussels and the Polish government is not legal, but political in nature, as the European Commission wants more power than the treaties allow. Professor Ryszard Legutko, a member of the European Parliament of the governing Polish Law and Justice (PiS), was asked by Mariann Őry, a journalist from Magyar Hírlap, about the developments of the past week.
- The decision of the Polish Constitutional Court last week, according to which certain provisions of the EU Basic Treaty are incompatible with the constitution, caused a great response. What is at the heart of this debate?
- From a legal point of view, there is nothing extraordinary in the decision, since Poland joined the EU, so in the last almost twenty years, several similar ones have been made. It simply says that the constitution is the highest, the highest legal act in Poland. That's it. Each member state assumes that its own national constitution takes precedence. There was nothing extraordinary about it until now... The dispute is not legal, but political. The EU institutions are using the decision of the Constitutional Court to attack the Polish government , because in the last two or three years the European Commission has started to say that EU law takes precedence. This is complete nonsense. The basic treaties do not mention anywhere that EU law takes precedence in general...
…– What is the purpose of the European Commission?
- The EU institutions want to expand their powers. This has at least been evident since Jean-Claude Juncker openly stated that he was leading a political committee. According to this, the European Commission is no longer a neutral mediator, but has its own political agenda. It wants to expand beyond the contractual framework , and considers the conservative-led Central and Eastern European countries, such as Poland and Hungary, to be the easiest targets. In our case, judicial reform was the pretext for the attack, which, as I said, is not an EU competence.
"How can the events continue?" What can Brussels do next?
- Legally, they cannot do much, but respect for EU law and treaties is quite rare these days, rather their violation has become commonplace. New measures are expected against Poland, if only because Germany and France sided with the European Commission, and the foreign ministers of the two countries issued a joint statement. Most likely, the committee will try to withdraw the resources of the recovery fund from Poland, which will take you completely into the territory of illegality. They are constantly blackmailing us, threatening us with the use of words, which is especially amazing in the light of the fact that officials are ordering the correction of a democratically elected government. The EU is outlawed. This is a sad conclusion on my part, but unfortunately true. Treaties and rules are the only protective shield of the smaller member states, without them they would attack and humiliate us even more shamelessly. Nevertheless, I think that the Polish government should not back down, give in to financial and all kinds of other blackmail….
The full interview can be read here.
(Header image: Kraków Wyborcza)
