Debate: State of the Union
Date: WEDNESDAY, 13 SEPTEMBER 2023
Speaker: Ryszard Antoni Legutko
Political group: ECR
Country: Germany
Language: EN

To paraphrase Shakespeare’s Hamlet, something is rotten in the State of the Union. There is more than ever instability, conflict, tension and uncertainty. Let me quote a recent issue of The Economist: ‘Inflation remains hot [...] officials are increasingly worried by the cloudy growth outlook [...] the bloc is facing recession.’   It is, to your credit, Madam President, that you initiated and continue the sanctions against Russia. But again, one cannot be all too happy. Before the invasion, the Commission did not dare to do something about the German-Russian energy alliance. Through this refusal to act, the Commission bears some responsibility for the depth of the energy crisis.  The migration policy has been a failure. Despite the Commission’s hustle and bustle and fiery rhetoric, the people-smuggling business is thriving and the disintegration of the social fabric continues. In Western Europe, the number of thefts, robberies and rapes has soared: about 30 rapes for 100 000 inhabitants in France and Belgium, compared to less than 2 in my country.  The Green Deal – the Commission’s flagship – instead of being a vehicle of growth, is a costly extravaganza: over EUR 300 billion by 2030 with rising living costs, energy bills and other unpleasant aspects of the Commission’s and Parliament’s fantasies. The Commission has been unsurprisingly silent on this matter.  The last sinister fantasy is the Nature Restoration Law. The curator of these harmful reveries, Mr Timmermans, has taken a convenient exit and seeks his luck in national politics. I hope that voters will give him what he deserves.  Another financial extravaganza has been the common debt of EUR 800 billion by 2026. We already know the predictions were erroneous. The cost of all this will be at least twice as high. The EU budget is in shambles: -EUR 66 billion as of today. You apparently calculated that the markets would have had more trust in the financial credibility of the EU than that of the Member States. Unfortunately, you mistook the EU propaganda for the real thing.  And finally, politics. When I compare the past Commission with yours, I see a continuous slide towards oligarchy with a growing disregard for any restraints the Treaty stipulated. The Commission turned into a partisan machine, meddling in national politics, trying to topple the governments they don’t like.  You, yourself, Madam President, threatened the Italian voters before the elections. Let me quote you: ‘If things go in a difficult direction, we have tools’, you said. Let me remind you, you don’t have any tools to interfere with the democratic process of the nation state. Mr Lukashenko has such tools. You don’t.  You made the rule of law a caricature. There is an old proverb: ‘Physician, heal thyself.’ Heal thyself, Madam President. For one thing, let the Commission stop juggling with the legal basis, claiming, for instance, that taxes are not taxes but contributions, thus sidestepping the necessary procedures, and perhaps start by providing all the documents relevant to the vaccines deal, including the text messages. That would be a good example of how to be a law-abiding person.  And the last point. Believe it or not, but this Commission will go in history as one that tried to regulate the language of the European Union and to establish a sort of officially sanctioned indoctrination. For instance, by abolishing certain words such as ‘Christmas’. Yes, you withdrew from this idiotic move, but the fact is that the bureaucrats were planning it – a large bunch of the European Commission had been working on how we should avoid the word ‘Christmas’. I mean, this is simply outrageous.  But this gives us an insight into how the Commission works, and what we see should be a warning to us all.