The confrontation between the EU Commission and the Polish government escalated as Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen crossed swords before the plenary session of the European Parliament yesterday. Whereas Morawiecki presented the case that the EU is usurping powers through legal procedures, von der Leyen ignored the merit of the challenge and simply announced actions against Poland.
The political part of Morawiecki’s speech was not good, as he accused Russia of being responsible for the energy crisis and of threatening the EU’s eastern borders. But on the main issue, the controversy with the EU over the primacy of national Constitutional Law, he made a very important point which is universally relevant.
On the EU ruling that the newly created Disciplinary Chamber of the judiciary in Poland is illegal, Morawiecki said the Polish government believes in the EU and in the Treaties, which establish that EU law supersedes national law, but only in those areas of jurisdiction established by the treaties. It is the duty of the national constitutional court to ensure that such boundaries are not trespassed. That occurred, however, with the recent European Court of Justice rulings against Poland.
“It is unacceptable to impose one’s decisions on others without a legal basis. It is all the more unacceptable to use the language of financial blackmail for this purpose, to talk about penalties, or to use even more far-reaching words against certain Member States,” Morawiecki said in his English-language statement yesterday. “I reject the language of threats, hazing and coercion. I do not agree to politicians blackmailing and threatening Poland. I do not agree that blackmail should become a method of conducting policy towards a Member State. That’s not how democracies do things….
“Union law precedes national law—to the level of the statutes and in the areas of competence granted to the Union. This principle applies in all EU countries. But the Constitution remains the supreme law.” The EU is a great achievement, Morawiecki said, but it “is not a state. The States are the 27 Member States of the Union! The States are European sovereigns.… In the treaties, we have entrusted the Union with a very large range of competences. But we have not entrusted it with everything. Many areas of law remain the competence of nation states.”
“If you want to make Europe into a nationless superstate, first gain the consent of all European countries and societies for this. I will repeat once again: the supreme law of the Republic of Poland is the Constitution. It precedes other sources of law. No Polish court, no Polish parliament and no Polish government can depart from this principle.” (https://www.gov.pl/web/primeminister/statement-by-prime-minister-mateusz-morawiecki-in-the-european-parliament)
On her side, von der Leyen said the Oct. 7 Constitutional ruling in Poland “calls into question the foundations of the European Union. It is a direct challenge to the unity of the European legal order.” She said the EU must defend Polish citizens from its government, which is lifting legal protection with its actions. Therefore, “the Commission will act. And the options are all known.”
Those options include blocking EU recovery funds, which von der Leyen called “European money.” (https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/speech_21_5361)
