Debate: State of the Union
Date: WEDNESDAY, 16 SEPTEMBER 2020
Speaker: Ryszard Antoni Legutko
Political group: ECR
Country: Germany
Language: EN

I therefore find it rather puzzling that every year over the last decade we have heard from every Commission President that a radiant future is awaiting us and that the days of EU glory are just around the corner, provided of course that the European Commission and the European institutions get more competences. You must be aware, Madam President, that fewer and fewer people across Europe take this message seriously. The European Health Agency, the European Cloud, the European Bauhaus – I wonder if the new European architecture will resemble this building. What a frightening perspective.  Madam President, the gist of your argument today was that the pandemic crisis is a good opportunity to launch ambitious radical programmes, including the Green Deal. I’m sorry to say it, but this is a bad argument. This is bad logic and bad logic generates bad policy. What you are proposing is a great leap forward in a situation in which the future is more precarious than ever. The Green Deal with 55% – why not 60? – is a costly extravaganza, animated solely by a spirit of environmentalist crusade, not by a sober social and economic calculation.  Now a few words on the so-called rule of law provisions. I say ‘so-called’ because it has nothing to do with rule or with law. The whole idea, as you remember, was an iniquitous trick of the previous Commission, in complete disregard of the treaties, with the intention of bullying the governments that dissented from the mainstream. It is not what those governments do, because they don’t do anything objectionable, but what they are. The previous Commission let a malignant genie out of the bottle, a genie of political foul play, and they are not interested in putting it back. This so—called conditionality is another step towards complete lawlessness, the prospect of which makes the majority of my colleagues almost ecstatic.  Madam President, do not be deluded by the sanctimonious rhetoric you hear in this Chamber. As usual, behind sanctimoniousness, there is ugly politics and there is hypocrisy. What this rule of politics amounts to is brutal majoritarianism. The mainstream majority wants to crush every form of dissent. Do not open the door for more instruments of the tyranny of the majority, as you promised you would do. That was the scariest part of your speech. This is already getting uglier and uglier, wider and more mendacious. The European institutions want to switch off the democratically constituted institutions of the nation states. They instigate internal conflicts by endorsing some parties rather than other parties. This is not your business. You shouldn’t do it. This is political arrogance at its worst.  Let me conclude. If we continue – if you and your Commission continue – on the current course, the course espoused by many of my fellow group leaders here this morning, Europe will be wrecked. I repeat, Europe will be wrecked, caught in an ideological pincer movement, orchestrated by green and federalist extremists. Mr Juncker will forever be remembered as the Commission President who lost Britain. You, Ms von der Leyen, must make sure that you are not the President who lost the peoples of Europe. I urge you to work with the Member States, not with the ideologically-driven campaigns masquerading as political groups in this House. Save the European Union from ideology and return it to reality.