Debate: The Rule of law crisis in Poland and the primacy of EU law
Date: TUESDAY, 19 OCTOBER 2021
Speaker: Ryszard Antoni Legutko
Political group: ECR
Country: Germany
Language: EN

Secondly, the coalition is decidedly left-wing, with the EPP and Donald Tusk following suit, becoming more and more radical and trying to enforce their leftist views on the entire world, including recently, believe it or not, on the American State of Texas. Thirdly, it has no understanding for dissent and therefore surrounds the dissenting groups with a  Once you keep this in mind, you will understand why this Parliament has been waging a cold war against, and trying to destabilise, conservative governments in Europe, and why, to achieve this end, they have been violating the basic principles of the Treaties and making up ad hoc rules that are not there. In this inglorious task, they have been unfortunately seconded by other institutions, including the European Commission, which, at least since the times of Jean-Claude Juncker and Mr Timmermans, became a political institution, strongly partisan, ideological and arrogant. The principles of conferral, subsidiarity and proportionality explicitly inscribed in Article 5 were thrown overboard.  To give an example, tomorrow there will be another chapter of Poland-bashing because of our abortion law. Who cares that such matters as abortion are exclusively the competences of the nation state? The majority can outvote any restraining rule. If making 2 + 2 = 5 were to hurt the Polish Government, they would not hesitate to put it to the vote. You know what? Chances are that they would have it carried. Having got rid of the basic principles of the treaties, they came up with their own rules which don’t exist in the Treaties and which the Treaties preclude. The first product of their inventive genius came from the Commission, and it was the rule of law framework, and then its parliamentary offspring, the rule of conditionality ˗ an absolute outrage and a sheer monstrosity from a legal and moral point of view. So what? Might is right.  The newest gizmo is the primacy of EU law. In various public statements this phrase has been immersed in typical EU gobbledygook, but I would love to know what exactly do you mean by making this claim, Madam President? There is not a word about it in the Treaties. Where did you take it from? If not from the Treaties, then where from? And what do you think it means? That European law trumps national law in the areas over which the EU has exclusive competence is a rather commonsensical statement. Nobody questions it. Does it mean that European law trumps the national law in the areas over which the EU does not have any competence? But this is absurd. It would be like the primacy of the European law over the law of the State of Texas.  I’m sure that the majority of my colleagues in this Chamber would want precisely this, but this does not make it any less absurd. Or perhaps, by primacy you mean that the European institutions will decide which areas are under their competence and which are not, and the national institutions will have no power to oppose their decision. But this is a very dangerous concept, extremely dangerous, because it gives the EU omnipotence and omniscience it does not have, it cannot have, and to be frank, it does not deserve.  Over the last decade, the EU has turned out to be unable to restrain itself and respect the limits imposed by the principles of conferral, subsidiarity and proportionality. The trust that it will stay within the Treaties in the years to come is gone. You see, Madam President, we are not afraid of European law ˗ we are afraid of European lawlessness, of the tyranny of majority, of abuse of power and of the cavalier use of the Treaties. despite what one can see in the Parliament and in the Commission. Might is not right.