Poland will not allow itself to be instructed on how to respect democracy and the rule of law by “impudent” west European politicians whose own countries have violated those principles over the last century, says a Polish government minister.
His remarks come as the Polish and Hungarian governments are blocking the passage of the European Union budget and coronavirus recovery fund. They oppose a mechanism linking disbursement of funds to respect for the rule of law.
“When we entered the European Union, we agreed on certain rules of the game,” said Michał Wójcik, a minister currently serving in the prime minister’s chancellery, who was previously deputy justice minister.
Those rules did not include “surrendering competence over judicial reform” nor linking European funds to the rule of law, said Wójcik. “There is no legal basis for this in the [EU] treaties,” and so anyone who tries to introduce such a mechanism is “acting illegally [while] talking about the rule of law”.
Wójcik argued that, as a nation that “has suffered a lot” in its history, Poles greatly values their sovereignty. In light of that history, it is “insolence without precedence” to hear “politicians today, even German ones, say that the nations of this part of Europe should be starved”.
Last month, Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party called for Katarina Barley, a German vice-president of the European Parliament, to be removed from office after she was reported as saying that Hungary and Poland should be “financially starved” for violating the rule of law. It later emerged that she had been misquoted.
“Poland and Poles should not be taught the rule of law and democracy,” continued Wójcik, who condemned the “impudence of politicians from western Europe” who are trying to do so.
“It is insolence for those who have been at odds with the rule of law for the last hundred years – and I do not need to say which events are involved here – to teach us the rule of law today,” concluded the minister.
The Polish government has been found by a wide range of institutions and expert bodies to have violated the rule of law and Poland’s own constitution. A poll earlier this year showed that a majority of Poles regard the government’s overhaul of the judiciary as an attempt to violate the rule of law.
Opinion polls on the proposed EU rule-of-law mechanism have produced varying results in Poland. A survey by Kantar last month found that 72% of Poles supported linking EU funds to the rule of law.
However, a poll published last week by United Surveys for Dziennik Gazeta Prawna and RMF FM found that 46% of Poles are opposed to such a mechanism, with only 37% in favour.
The most recent survey, by IBRiS for Rzeczpospolita this week, found Poles more evenly split, with 45% in favour of linking EU funds to the rule of law and 44% opposed.
Main photo credit: Roman Bosiacki / Agencja Gazeta
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.
