“I prefer Europe to be a Europe of many speeds. I will try to argue this thesis. As a Pole, I also feel European. I would like Europe to be a victorious continent, but it is not. The European Union is today the kind of economy the United States was 25 years ago. Today it is only 2/3 of American GDP. Europe is also losing to India and China. It is losing because, artificially, 27 countries are being forced into a common denominator. All rivers into one stream. By force. If there is a migration pact, then we are all supposed to act the same. Out of love for Europe, I advise the European Union to abandon this mistaken concept,” said former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki during the 11th Extraordinary Congress of GP Clubs.
The second day of debates at the 11th Extraordinary Congress of Gazeta Polska Clubs ended with a meeting with former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who took part in a panel together with editors of the Free Speech Zone, including Tomasz Sakiewicz, Piotr Lisiewicz, Wojciech Mucha, Janusz Życzkowski, Dawid Wildstein, Sylwester Jastrzębowski and Jakub Maciejewski. The former head of the Polish government touched on, among other things, issues related to security and the different perspectives of how it is perceived in Europe.
“It is hard to blame Spaniards, Portuguese, or other nations for not understanding our problems with Russia. Just as we do not fully understand their problems with Morocco, Western Sahara, Mali, or Algeria. For us, that is a foreign world. Therefore, I do not blame them, although I would like them to at least meet the two-percent threshold in NATO. But let us not count on Spaniards to defend us here. Meanwhile, like-minded countries, the coalition of the willing, the Scandinavians – this is a great defeat for Putin. After the attack on Ukraine, Finland and Sweden joined NATO, and now they view Russia just as we do. Let me remind you that Sweden was still a neutral country only five years ago,” said Prime Minister Morawiecki.
He then stressed that he wanted to share a new thought, for which he might be criticized, even by some right-wing commentators.
“For the past twenty or thirty years, you have certainly heard very often that Europe cannot be a Europe of many speeds, that it must be a uniform Europe, that we must all go like rivers flowing into one estuary. Here before you in Sulejów, I want to put forward the thesis that I prefer Europe to be a Europe of many speeds. I will try to argue this thesis. As a Pole, I also feel European. I would like Europe to be a victorious continent, but it is not. The European Union is today the kind of economy the United States was 25 years ago. Today it is only 2/3 of American GDP. Europe is also losing to India and China. It is losing because, artificially, 27 countries are being forced into a common denominator. All rivers into one stream. By force. If there is a migration pact, then we are all supposed to act the same. Accepting migrants from every corner of the world. Out of love for Europe, I advise the European Union to abandon this mistaken concept. If the Union is to survive, it will survive only as a European Economic Community and a Europe of many speeds in other areas. If someone wants to integrate more on the basis of multi-kulti, because there are countries that want to take in migrants without limit, then by all means. Let them do it. We, Hungarians, Czechs, do not want to go down that road. The migration pact is the prime example – Spaniards, Germans, French want to have millions of new immigrants. The English are already drowning in problems caused by such a policy. If they want that speed, let them have it,” explained the former head of the Polish government.
As a second example, Mateusz Morawiecki pointed to the eurozone, into which all EU countries are being pressured to enter.
“The eurozone is not an optimal currency area. Italy suffers because it joined. For Greeks or French, the euro is not good either. It is good for the Dutch, the Germans. But one speed was created, and it restrains some while being useful for others. If you want to integrate that way, go ahead, but leave us in peace. Let us go back to the stage of the European Economic Community. That was a successful project,” he said.
He also added that he is “an absolute opponent of the treaty revision that is now underway,” because it will lead to broader subordination of states to Brussels, Berlin, and Paris.