Polish ruling party wants German EU official removed over “financial starvation” remarks

The European faction led by Poland’s ruling party has submitted a request for Katarina Barley, a vice-president of the European Parliament, to be removed from office after she made remarks suggested “financially starving” member states that do not respect the rule of law.

Barley’s remarks to a radio station in her native Germany caused outrage from the Polish government, which said they contained painful echoes of Poland’s mistreatment under German occupation in World War Two.

Although it later emerged that she had been misquoted, Poland’s ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party argues that even her clarified remarks are still offensive.

Yesterday, one of its MEPs, Ryszard Legutko, one of the co-chairmen of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, formally submitted a request for Barley to be removed from her position, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

PAP says that inside sources suggest the European Parliament’s president, David Sassoli, is taking the issue seriously and will try to persuade Barley to apologise.

Legutko, however, believes that is unlikely. “She will probably count on the fact that the groups that rule the EP will politically protect her,” he told PAP.

The controversy began last week, when Deutschlandfunk published an interview with Barley, who is a former justice minister in Germany’s federal government and has served as a vice-president of the European Parliament since last year, on behalf of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D).

Initially, the radio station published an article based on the interview in which it suggested that Barley had called for the “financial starvation” of Poland and Hungary by denying them European funds in order to make them comply with rule-of-law standards.

That led to outrage from senior government figures in Poland, who said her words stirred painful memories of Polish suffering at the hands of Germany during the war.

“This statement is outrageous and evokes the worst historical associations,” tweeted Michał Dworczyk, head of the prime minister’s office. “You could say that Germany has experience of starving and persecuting Poles.”

Both Dworczyk and Piotr Müller, the Polish government’s spokesman, called for Barley to “withdraw these shameful words and apologise”. She has not done so.

However, a more detailed transcript of the interview that Deutschlandfunk published separately showed that Barley’s words had been a little different.

While she had called for the EU to take stronger action regarding the rule-of-law situation in Poland and Hungary, she had only used the words “financially starve” in reference specifically to Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister.

As part of the same answer, she also mentioned wanting to stop “our tax money going to regimes like that of Orbán and Kaczynski”, PiS’s chairman, who she said do not respect EU values.

Deutschlandfunk later corrected its article based on the interview and added an apology for previously “distorting Katarina Barley’s statement by exaggerating it”.

In an interview with Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, Barley said that her reference to starvation “concerned only Orbán and the corrupt system he has created in Hungary…I wasn’t talking about Poland”.

Yet PiS MEPs, in a letter to Sassoli, argue that Barley’s words were nevertheless “inappropriate, inflammatory and provocative”, representing an “insult against two nations that have faced starvation in living memory”.

“Sometimes the Teutonic arrogance towards the countries of Central and Eastern Europe manifests itself,” said Joachim Brudziński, a PiS MEP and deputy leader of the party, quoted by wPolityce.

On Saturday, Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, also described Barley’s remarks as “shameful” and said that “Germany should remember hunger, genocide and the tragedies for which they are responsible”.

Even an MEP from Poland’s main opposition – Bogusław Sonik of the centrist Civic Coalition (KO) – criticised Barley, telling Do Rzeczy that she had used “scandalous words that should never be said”.

The controversy over Barley’s remarks comes amid debate within the EU over if and how European funding should be made contingent upon respect for the rule of law. A preliminary agreement over the next EU budget was ambiguous on the issue, delaying any final decision.

Last month, an overwhelming majority of MEPs voted to adopt a report criticising Poland over the rule of law and calling for tougher EU action against it, including limiting funds.

Yesterday, the parliament debated another report calling for the establishment of an EU mechanism on democracy, rule of law and fundamental rights.

“Officials from Brussels want to…introduce abortion, gender ideology and special rights for sexual minorities under the guise of concern for democracy,” claimed PiS MEP Beata Kempa, quoted by Onet.

Last week, the European Commission published its first ever EU-wide report on the rule of law, with its section on Poland raising a number of concerns over judicial reform, media pluralism, pressure on NGOs and a government-led anti-LGBT campaign.

The Polish and Hungarian governments had preempted the report by declaring that they would create their own institution to assess the rule of law in EU countries and end “double standards” in treatment between western and eastern member states.

During her state of the union address to the European Parliament last month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that ensuring rule of law is of “the highest importance”.

However, when mentioning EU funds in this context, she said only that they should be “protected against any kind of fraud, corruption and conflict of interest” – something that in theory is already done – rather than linked to threats to rule of law, democracy or other EU values, as the European Parliament has demanded.

Main image credit: Philip Nürnberger/INSM (under CC BY-ND 2.0)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.