What is the real reason for the clash between the EU and Poland
Between Brussels and Warsaw a duel without winners or losers. Here's how it will end. The article by Tino Oldani for Italy Today
The duel between Ursula Von der Leyen and Polish Prime Minister Mateus Morawiecki, however bitter and divisive within the EU itself, is destined to remain without winners or losers.
The reason? Simple: apply the sanctions against Poland, threatened by the President of the EU Commission in her speech before the Strasbourg Parliament, such as the blocking of the Recovery Plan funding for non-compliance with the rule of law, up to the revocation of the right to vote in the head of the Poland, would take a long time, with a complex bureaucratic and legal process, with an outcome that is not at all obvious. A battle that risks freezing the agenda of the EU Commission, which needs the unanimity of the 27 EU countries to implement the reforms already planned, and without the vote of Poland (and Hungary, its ally), everything would be blocked.
For this reason, the only way out seems to be the one suggested by Angela Merkel to her friend Von der Leyen: calm and chalk, and wait for the European Court of Justice to rule on the appeal filed by Poland and Hungary, who contested the application rule of law to block Recovery Plan funding to their countries. A ruling that is unlikely to be issued by the end of this year, while the EU agenda is full of problems to be solved, in the lead the completion of the green regulations of the "Fit for 55" and the revision of the stability pact.
Therefore, there will be time to reflect on the opposing theses of Brussels and Warsaw. What is at stake, for Von der Leyen, is the primacy of European legislation over national legislation, in particular on the rule of law and justice, a primacy that a recent ruling by the Polish Constitutional Court would have denied. But, for Morawiecki, the Polish Court has said something else: the primacy of EU legislation can only refer to the matters that the Member States have delegated to the European Union with the treaties, and not to non-delegated matters, on which national sovereignty remains intact. . For this reason, argues the Polish premier, the EU Commission should avoid "blackmailing" member states on the basis of non-existent legal rules.
On this last point, the reports of newspapers and newscasts, all aligned in favor of Von der Leyen, scandalized the word "blackmail", without however explaining why Morawiecki used such a heavy term. For the sake of completeness of information, here are some passages from his speech, in which he underlined, in response to those who spoke of Polexit (that is, the exit from Poland from the EU), that he has always been a "convinced Europeanist" and that Poland it has no intention of leaving the EU, since "Europe is its place and European integration is a choice of civility and strategy".
In the chapter devoted to the rule of law, Morawiecki states: “The Union is a great achievement of European countries. It is a strong economic, political and social alliance. It is the strongest and most developed international organization in history. But the European Union is not a state. The states are the 27 members of the Union. The States are European sovereigns, they are the masters of the treaties, and it is the States that define the sphere of competences entrusted to the European Union. In the Treaties, we have entrusted the Union with a very wide range of competences. But we didn't entrust everything to him. Many areas of law remain the responsibility of nation states. If the institutions provided for by the Treaties exceed their powers, the Member States must have the tools to react, respecting the hierarchy of sources of law. Union law precedes national law in the areas of competence attributed to the Union. But the Constitution remains the supreme law, at the top of the internal legal order ».
This latter principle is valid not only in Poland. Citing the judgments of the constitutional courts of other EU countries, Morawiecki underlined the key passages: "The Constitution prohibits the transfer of powers to such an extent that a state cannot be considered a sovereign and democratic country" (France); "The transfer of powers to the EU cannot violate the principle of supremacy of the Constitution and cannot violate any provision of the Constitution" (Germany). Further on: «I could mention dozens of similar sentences from Italy, Spain, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Romania, Lithuania and other countries. The doctrine that we defend today in Poland has been consolidated for years ”.
However, according to Morawiecki, in the EU there seems to persist "a double standard" between the strongest countries and those that previously stood beyond the Iron Curtain: "There is truly equality in the extremely different judgments and decisions taken by Brussels. and Luxembourg vis-à-vis different states in similar circumstances, which in fact deepen the divisions between strong and weak states, rich and poor states? Pretending that these problems do not exist leads to negative consequences ». Further on: «The set of rules of the game must be the same for everyone. It is unacceptable to extend powers, to act by means of accomplished facts. It is unacceptable to impose your decisions on others without a legal basis. It is all the more unacceptable to use the language of financial blackmail for this purpose, to speak of sanctions, or to use even more threatening words against some Member States. I reject the language of threats and coercion. I do not accept that blackmail becomes a method of political conduct towards a Member State. This is not how democracies work ”. How does it come out? For Morawiecki, "not with intimidation, but with dialogue".
Article published on ItaliaOggi
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/qual-e-il-vero-motivo-dello-scazzo-fra-ue-e-polonia/ on Sun, 24 Oct 2021 06:22:23 +0000.