“I will say it clearly: I support Poland’s membership in the European Union; however, I believe that matters such as the constitutional system, the judiciary, and security are reserved exclusively for the Polish constitution, the Polish president, and the Polish government,” said President of the Republic of Poland Karol Nawrocki during a lecture in Prague.
During an official visit to the Czech Republic, President Karol Nawrocki delivered a lecture at Charles University in Prague. It focused on Poland’s vision of the European Union.
“The European Union is our natural political environment. But let’s be honest: this is not the Union of our dreams. We joined the European Union, which was supposed to – and indeed did – offer us economic opportunities. It also enabled us to unleash our entrepreneurial potential. We entered the European Union in order to benefit from the Schengen area, and we do benefit from it. However, the goal was not for the European Union to dictate the conditions of our political system, our diet, or the upbringing of Polish children,”
the president said.
Karol Nawrocki pointed out that there are forces seeking to create a more centralized European Union, using federalization as a disguise to conceal this process.
“The essence of this process is to strip member states – except for the two largest – of their sovereignty; to weaken their national democracies by allowing them to be outvoted within the EU, thereby depriving them of their role as ‘masters of the treaties’; to abolish the principle that the EU holds only those competences granted to it in the treaties by the member states; to recognize that the EU may grant itself new competences; and to establish the supremacy of the sovereignty of EU institutions over the sovereignty of the member states,”
he emphasized.
“Contrary to widespread belief, Poland – including the conservative camp to which I belong – is not an enemy of the EU. It merely opposes the currently dominant political current. And as in any democracy, the opposition is not the enemy of the state, but a representative of a program of governance different from the prevailing one. Poland – like every member state – has its own vision of the EU and has the right to it. It has the right to advocate for this vision and for its adoption. That is the nature of democracy,”
Nawrocki added.
“In Poland’s vision of the EU, the only sovereigns remain the political nations – the demoi understood as communities of citizens of individual EU member states. Modern nations are not tribes driven by atavistic passions for domination over others – as the EU mainstream tries to portray them – but nations with millennia-long traditions, conscious of their existence, their heritage, their culture, and their national interests. Attempts to eliminate them – as European centralists would prefer – will only lead to conflict and disaster,”
the Polish president continued to warn.
Censorship? That is not part of Polish culture!
Poland supports maintaining the principle of unanimity in those areas of EU decision-making where it currently applies; maintaining the rule of “one state – one commissioner” when forming the European Commission; and restoring the presidency to the head of government of the member state holding the rotating EU presidency. Poland also proposes abolishing the position of President of the European Council.
Furthermore, Nawrocki indicated that Poland supports shaping the voting system in the EU Council in such a way as to reduce the excessive advantage of large EU states, as well as basing the functioning of the EU on pragmatic principles – without ideological pressure.
“In Polish political culture, the idea of any form of censorship is foreign,” Nawrocki stressed, adding:
“I will say this clearly: I support Poland’s membership in the European Union; however, I believe that matters such as the constitutional system, the judiciary, or security are reserved exclusively for the Polish constitution, the Polish president, and the Polish government. The same should apply in the case of every member state. I understand my role as President of Poland not as someone who questions our presence in the European Union, but as a leader who, based on cooperation with the countries of our region, our shared sensitivities and sentiments, will build a stronger Central Europe within the EU.”