Poland should not agree to any gradual attempts to replace NATO with the European Union – this is how Law and Justice (PiS) MEP Michał Dworczyk commented on EU discussions about the mutual assistance clause.
On Thursday, a two-day informal meeting of EU heads of government and state began in Cyprus. A key point of the agenda is the so-called mutual defense clause of EU member states.
It is based in part on the provisions of Article 42.7 of the Treaty on European Union.
Article 42.7 of the Treaty on European Union
If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations.
This shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defense policy of certain Member States.
Commitments and cooperation in this area shall remain consistent with commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which, for those states that are members of it, remains the foundation of their collective defense and the forum for its implementation.
Today, ahead of the Council meeting, Donald Tusk stated that in the face of the growing threat from Russia, “the EU cannot rely solely on declarations, guarantees, or treaties, but must have practical decisions that directly concern security, including the eastern border, and these must also be European decisions,” adding that “it can no longer be just paper.”
Earlier, in an interview published in the Financial Times, Tusk outlined numerous benefits of such a solution, while also questioning the loyalty of the United States toward its European allies in times of threat. However, the authors of the article pointed out that many EU countries view work on the “clause” as undermining NATO.
“Poland should not agree”
Michał Dworczyk, an MEP from Law and Justice (PiS) and former head of the Prime Minister’s Office, addressed the planned EU initiative extensively on social media.
He noted that introducing mutual assistance guarantees modeled on NATO’s mechanism would require changes to treaty provisions.
“Brussels is increasingly interfering in the defense policies of member states, but it must be remembered that in 2004 we joined an ambitious economic integration structure, not a military one,” he recalled.
He added that “Poland should not agree to any gradual attempts to replace NATO with the European Union.”
“First, the alliance with the United States remains the fundamental guarantor of our security and of the entire regional security architecture. Second, NATO has built over recent decades a system of allied defense planning, exercises, air defense, command, and reconnaissance that cannot be replicated one-to-one in a short time – especially given the Brussels style of governance, where bureaucratic sluggishness and overregulation are interrupted only by the authoritarian interventions of the President of the European Commission. Third, the only credible complement to NATO are regional formats in which countries with a similar perception of specific threats cooperate (e.g., the Baltic, Black Sea, or Mediterranean regions),” Dworczyk listed.