No to an EU super-state that no one has chosen and is not in the Treaties: the Thatcherian speech of the Polish premier
Mateusz Morawiecki, Polish premier, gave a speech to the European Parliament, in which he recalled the true role of the European Union. What the EU should be, according to its own Treaties and what, instead, it should never become. He was punctually treated by the President of the Commission Ursula von der Leyen, as a representative of a rogue state, subject to international sanctions. Which gives us a measure of how the current EU has moved away from its original project.
First of all, the conservative premier of Warsaw reminded Europeans why ours is a special continent, different from all the others:
We have to answer the question of where Europe has gained its advantage over the centuries. About what made European civilization so strong. The answer of history goes like this: we have become powerful because we are the most pluralist continent on the planet. Historian Niall Ferguson wrote that: “The monolithic empires of the East have lost the race for innovation, while the numerous kingdoms and city-states of a western Eurasia, divided by rivers and mountain ranges, have always been in competition, and in communication with each other ". Therefore, Europe has won by maintaining the balance between creative competition and communication. Between competition and cooperation. Today we still need both.
Morawiecki's speech comes in response to a chorus of criticism (and the call for sanctions) to the ruling of the Polish Supreme Court which reaffirms the principle that the Polish Constitution is the supreme law of the state. European regulations can acquire priority only in the fields that the Polish nation has delegated to the EU, but not on the Constitution itself. Warsaw is clear on this point: “Constitutional pluralism means that there must remain a space for dialogue between us, between our countries and our legal systems. This dialogue also takes place through the judgments of the courts ”.
The question is not only theoretical, but comes at the height of a tug-of-war over the reform of the judiciary launched in Poland. The technical question and the reasons for Warsaw and Brussels have already been extensively analyzed by Musso in Atlantico Quotidiano . First of all, the ruling of the Polish Court reaffirms Poland's adherence to the Treaties and compliance with them (so there is no "Polexit" in question), the interpretation that the Treaties gives the Court of Justice is simply not accepted as a rule. Justice. “In the EU Treaties we have delegated many competences, but not all of them, to the European Union. There is no doubt that EU law has supremacy over national law in those areas (of competence, ed. ) That have been delegated by the member states to the EU ”. But "if an EU institution goes beyond its powers, a member state must have the tools to react".
However, the speech of the Polish premier goes far beyond the ex officio defense of the decisions of the Polish judiciary. Do we accept the principle that the Luxembourg Court, on behalf of all of Europe, issues a judgment that is capable of overturning a Polish court judgment? If so, we have a super-state, but no one has chosen. "The adoption of this last interpretation – says Morawiecki – could give rise to an arbitrary overturning of millions of sentences and the removal from their office of thousands of judges". In the name of respecting the rule of law, the rule of law in Poland would be ended.
Today we can choose between two attitudes: either we accept a path, completely extra-legal and outside the Treaties, which limits the sovereignty of European countries, including Poland, in favor of a disturbing expansion of the competences of institutions such as the Court of Justice, for this "silent revolution" which is taking place not on the basis of democratic decisions, but on the basis of court rulings. Or we can say: “no, my dear”, if you want to transform Europe into a super-state without nations, you must first obtain the consent of all European countries and their societies.
This attitude, Morawiecki sums it up as follows: “Yes to European universalism and no to European centralism”.
If this speech reminds you of something, make no mistake: it echoes the arguments of Margaret Thatcher's 1988 speech in Bruges. Even the Iron Lady was convinced that the strength of the EU lay in its pluralism, in the creative competition of different nations, by language and tradition. Morawiecki, like Thatcher at the end of the twentieth century, believes that the common European challenges are still strong and require unity. He indicates two, above all: the migratory pressure from the South and the threat from Russia to the East. Unfortunately, it is on these points that the EU is disunited.
Where the EU seeks centralism, it creates division: "We have undergone the lectures on democracy, the rule of law, on how we should shape our country, on the fact that we are making wrong choices, that we are too immature, that our democracy is still young: this is the fatal course of the narrative proposed by some ”, complains the Polish premier, addressing above all his Western and left-wing counterparts. Boasting a very ancient democracy (the first constitution written in Europe) and having faced alone the totalitarian enemies, both communism and Nazism, Poland can make a contribution, even in the construction of a European identity free from tyranny. Instead it is treated as a developing country, with serious democratic deficits. The fact of questioning the disbursement of aid provided by the Next Generation EU , for post- Covid reconstruction, what is it if not blackmail? "Penalization and repression inflicted by the strongest and richest countries against those who are still struggling to get out of the condition of having been on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, is not the right path".
The post No to an EU super-state that no one has chosen and is not in the Treaties: the Thatcherian speech by the Polish prime minister appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/no-ad-un-super-stato-ue-che-nessuno-ha-scelto-e-non-e-nei-trattati-il-discorso-thatcheriano-del-premier-polacco/ on Wed, 20 Oct 2021 03:54:00 +0000.