Prime Minister Morawiecki says he will not accept “blackmail” from Brussels and questions his “democratic control”
The verdict of the Constitutional Court of Poland that more than ten days ago opened an unprecedented legal crisis in the EU by rejecting the primacy of European law in several articles, is leading an intense debate in the European Parliament on Tuesday. The highlight: a face to face between the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. The first has reminded him of the entire arsenal of response that Brussels has at its disposal to confront the legal ‘rebellion’ and that they could put at risk the “210,000 million euros” that Poland should receive the next six years of Community funds.
The second has stressed that he will not accept “blackmail” before insisting that the Constitution “is above any other source of law.” He has gone further by accusing Brussels of exceeding its powers and even spoke of “decisions that are taken behind closed doors” and of a treatment that “is not equal” towards all countries.
The Polish prime minister was dispatched at ease in an initial speech that lasted half an hour when the script of the hundred planned interventions gave him five minutes at the beginning and as many at the end of the debate. The Presidency of the Bureau has had to call his attention on at least three occasions and in the last interruption Morawiecki replied even harshly: “Don’t bother me, I’m finishing.”
‘The ruling calls into question the foundations of the EU. It is a direct challenge to the unity of the European legal order. “This is the first time that a Member State has determined that the EU Treaties are incompatible with the national Constitution,” stressed Von der Leyen before guaranteeing that “the European Commission will act.” He put the three response routes on the table. The first. The various infringement procedures that, so far, have failed.
The second. Conditionality (there will be no money if the principles of the rule of law are not respected). This mechanism entered into force on January 1 and has been appealed to the CJEU by Hungary and Poland. “The Polish Government has to explain to us how it intends to protect (with this ruling) European money”: 210,000 million euros from the EU’s Multi-Annual Budget and from the recovery fund that Poland would receive in the coming years.
And the third option. The reactivation of Article 7. A ‘nuclear button’ (as the tool is known in community slang) that was pressed against Poland in 2017, which has since been on a dead end, which could leave the country without the right to vote and veto. And that it was pressed precisely because it considered that the same Constitutional Court that today rules against European law “is not independent and legitimate.”
And therein lies the heart of the conflict: that Brussels does not consider the Polish high court lawful due to authoritarian drifts in the country and government interference in the judiciary that has resulted in the discretionary lifting of “immunity” of judges and expulsion from “their functions without justification.”
Morawiecki not only rejected all the accusations. He did not remain in the defensive attitude of what, at one point, he came to consider as “a misunderstanding.” He attacked with all the arguments of the ultraconservative government that he represents under the initials of PiS. Iliberalism in its purest form.
«I reject this language of threats or coercion (…). Blackmail is becoming a common method in some Member States and this is not the basis of democracy, “he criticized. In his argumentation, the ideas that he had already conveyed to European leaders the day before in a letter in which he warned of the risk of “centralized management by institutions devoid of any democratic control.” A “dangerous phenomenon that threatens the future of the EU”.
The same but in a more extended version with a historical review of the role of his country in the fight against Nazism, the Russian threat that today takes shape “in the increase in prices caused by the actions of its companies” or the contribution of his country to the common project. “Poland did not come here empty-handed,” he said.
And yes, he stressed that “this is our place, our destiny, and we are not going to leave here.” There will be no ‘Polexit’. But “we do not accept blackmail, perhaps it works with others but not with Poland” and he remarked that “the Constitution is above any other source of law”; that other high courts have also questioned the CJEU (he used quotes from judgments from Denmark or Germany and referred to others from Spain, Italy, Romania or Lithuania). And that the EU is not a state. “Twenty-seven sovereign countries are, owners of the treaties and establish the competences within the EU. We have given many competitions, but not all ».
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