On Thursday, 15 March 2018, Polish MEPs of the Civic Platform, who are part of the EPP group at the European Parliament, voiced their indignation after the president of the Polish Republic, Andrzej Duda, likened the country’s accession to the European Union to an “annexation”.
The MEPs stressed that the EU was not an “invader, but a community of democratic states”, reiterating that Poland joined the EU in 2004 following a sovereign decision in a national referendum.
Three days earlier, Duda had compared his country’s membership of the EU to its occupation by Russia, Austria and Prussia for 123 years and referred to a supposed threat, comprised of decisions made on Poland’s behalf “far away, in distant capitals”, where “the money that [the Polish] work for is being spent”.
“Poland is the biggest beneficiary of the EU budget: from 2004 to 2017, our country received almost €100 billion net from the European Union”, replied the Christian Democrat MEPs, who fear that these statements could be the beginning of a “misinformation campaign” aimed at paving the way for Poland to leave the EU. They called upon their Polish colleagues to “distance themselves from the irresponsible and harmful remarks made by President Duda”.
These controversial comments were made against a backdrop of ongoing tensions between the EU and Warsaw, after the European Commission triggered the so-called ‘article 7 of the treaty’ procedure on the respect of the rule of law against Warsaw (see EUROPE 11930). (Original version in French by Mathieu Solal)