The desire to change power in Warsaw is so strong in Brussels that, in the midst of the ongoing war with satisfaction, a border associate State would be brought to ruin in order to accomplish its goal. This is why the problem of Poland with the Union is being raised today.
In Poland we utilized to think that our state interests are best served by the Community's quasi-federalist method of operation of the European Union. I remember perfectly well that this is the way Poland has convinced me to think. It was then revealed that neither the Polish left (Kwasniewski 2004) nor the right (Lech Kaczyński 2007) has the strength and assurance to avoid being blackmailed by the EU powers at a critical moment. Then, in fact, there was fresh empirical evidence each year that the Commission and the European Parliament are more allies of Poland than governments of countries playing the first violin in European politics.
When Angela Merkel insisted on defending our security-threatening policy of forging inexpensive (clearly for Germany and not for all) Russian gas, Parliament and the Commission tried at least to put any restrictions on this policy. And erstwhile Emmanuel Macron went on an unprecedented tour of Central Europe, calling for all next capital to break off cooperation with Poland, which acted in defence of freedom in the EU marketplace for services, Parliament and the Commission one more time resisted French protectionism for a long time, though, unfortunately, they have yet given up.
True, there have always been politicians and ideologists on the Polish right, proving that the EU's Community institutions are just an organization fig leaf for the interests of the powers that can push the hidden plan of European hegemony more easily. On the 1 hand, it was a consistent line of reasoning for nationalists (i.e. later Confederation), on the other, any conservative intellectuals who gradually gained the function of the ideological background of the Law and Justice (Legutko, Krasnodębski and others).
In this context, Germany has always been immediately recalled with its long-standing sense of universalist mission towards Europe and its peculiar talent for "Europeanisation" of its interior problems. And of course, there were always arguments for specified thinking.
Sudden German problems after beginning borders to a million culturally-Afro-Asian immigrants served by the Juncker Commission wanted to solve with gigantic penalties imposed on non-compulsory relocation countries. And the German thought of fast decarbonisation became almost immediately an authoritative ideology of the Commission and the European Parliament. Initially, they refused to pay attention to the sinister consequences of specified a task for countries in Central Europe with a different energy mix. However, to any critical point, which occurred somewhere in the mediate of the second decade of the present century, Polish pragmatic calculation was inactive in favour of the Community institutions and the alleged Community method of managing matters of Europe.
Doubts began to appear somewhere around 2011 after the European Parliament first burst into an enragement of ideological anger towards the recently enacted constitution of Hungary and in an ultimatious speech demanded its change. It is well known that planet views were concerned, as in Brussels it was recognised that the Hungarians had adopted a "backward" constitution and that their work to join the Union was to adopt a "progressive". At the same time, the Commission began preparing the alleged "legal framework". Eventually, they were never utilized against Hungary, but they were shortly to be useful for action against Poland. From the position of the Polish concept of the political future of the Union, the thing was immeasurable. This concept – as the supporters of Polish membership emphasized with an iron consequence since the run before the accession referendum – was that it was assumed that gradual deepening of the community, including extending it to fresh public policies, but even in the darkest dreams, it was not assumed that the future foundation of the community would become a fresh progressive ideology. Integration was expected to be economical and political, but not worldview.
Of course, for progressive Poles it was an unexpected joyous news. For non-progressive or insufficiently progressive enthusiasts of the political unity of Europe – a actual thunder from the clear sky. This is the dream of a wider European homeland. And shortly afterwards, due to the fact that already in autumn 2015, all the worst feelings began to come true, not only about Hungary, but besides Poland. First Parliament, and then under its force besides the Commission, began a large game aimed at removing the Polish right-wing government from power for clearly ideological reasons. At the same time, in the course of this game, they insisted not without success on expanding their quasi-federal power over the Union. It was a shock to not sufficiently progressive Polish supporters of integration and a blow to their religion in the Community method of building Europe. erstwhile faced with these facts, they were forced to reconsider their viewpoint. The community began to appear to them more as a threat than a chance. I know precisely what I'm talking about, due to the fact that I myself had to go through this shock and start rebuilding from the rubble my own imagination of the Union. Duda and Morawiecki, both of whom have always been "EU engaged", but now hindering further advancement of the federalist idea, have become political speakers of this fresh way of thinking.
And then the plague came to Europe, and with it large disappointment with European communityhood, especially in the south of the continent. His career was then made by the slogan, which in March 2020 the Italian Socialist paper "La Repubblica" struck in large print. It read: "La brutta Europa". The point was all the more so that the left was in Italy a kind of guardian of faithfulness and loyalty to Brussels. Italy, which at first attacked the most, peculiarly felt its European loneliness. Their objections to the deficiency of Community action were indeed somewhat exaggerated (as is the case with Italy), due to the fact that the Union besides had tiny instruments of intervention in the field of national wellness care. But as it was about to turn out, the sanitary crisis has triggered the most selfish reactions of European governments, whose symbol has become a disgrace to Europe as a whole, the alleged vaccine diplomacy.
A more attentive observer, the epidemic revealed an crucial thing that could be only intuitively perceived earlier. The acute crisis abruptly broke out, and in an area in which it was not expected in Europe, exposed the fraud in force in the Union for years, according to which all problems are more easy solved together than separately.
This time, however, it has become apparent that instruments and the possible to deal with the abrupt crisis only have a traditionally organised state, having not only classical public services but besides a sovereign attribute to proclaiming the state of emergency.
From the traumatic experience of COVID-19 there was an crucial lesson for Europe. At the time, the EU Commissioner for the interior marketplace Thierry Breton announced it in a publication published by the Atlantic Council. As a remedium on the EU's existing "councility and naivety", the Commissioner announced "the equipping Europe with management and consequence capacity, backed by resources and power", i.e. nothing but a leap of federalism. According to Breton, the fastest and key effects of specified strengthening of the competence of the Community institutions were to be two: primo – protecting the European economy from unfair competition of hostile autocracy, secundo – urgent diversification of natural materials sources.
It was 2020. 2 years later, erstwhile the crisis broke out in Europe even more serious and even more unexpected for Europeans, or war, immediately came to light the emptyness of the French Commissioner's rhetoric. Just as 2 years earlier, or even more so, the EU economy has proven to be dependent on hostile countries, and its abrupt cut-off from Russia has caused perturbation on a scale that has not been seen for decades. Practically nothing has helped to continually grow the Commission's power by facts made, especially since Mrs von der Leyen took the lead. As with the outbreak, so it turned out this time that it was associate States' policy errors that had a key impact on the outbreak of the energy crisis and only the fast correction of their policies, with Germany leading, could be a rescue. Neither pestilence nor war provided even weak evidence of the effectiveness of the Community institutions in border situations for Europe.
There is 1 clear exception to this, and it is of a hard importance to overestimate: the communisation of public debt. It has been done twice, on the occasion of both of these major crises, alongside the provisions of the European Treaties, which did not presume specified a thing. The first time Merkel and Macron, seeking mainly Mediterranean countries, announced a doubling of the EU budget 2021-2027 for the common debt of the full Union under the slogan of rebuilding the continent after the plague. The second was erstwhile the Hungarian veto was broken and decided that the activities of the Ukrainian government would be financed from the next common debt in 2023. Thanks to this last step, the Commission became a popular institution in Ukraine and the Kiev government ordered billboards to be suspended in the country with von der Leyen images, alongside akin with Biden, Duda and Johnson faces. For the future, this instrument is likely to service the Commission to establish superior oversight of Ukraine's policy if it survives the current war as a state independent of Moscow. But from the point of view of the relations of power and dependence within the Union, the revolutionary step one, or the communitation of debt incurred for post-covid reconstruction of Europe, was important.
Apart from certain treaties and the established tradition of division of competences between national and EU institutions, as well as the withdrawal from the alleged "subsidiarity principle", which (do not know why) continues to be taught at universities as a constitutional rule allegedly constitutive of the Union. Interestingly, therefore, the perverse model of federalism is now winning not with the fresh treaties, which would extend the scope of alleged exclusive EU policies specified as the protection of the external border or the management of strategical road or energy infrastructure. specified an extension of Community competence is no longer essential given that EU bureaucracy has won the right to decide in the associate States what it wants to decide. This could be the judicial strategy or procedures of the parliament (as in Poland) or the structure of the taxation administration or public procurement rules (as in Italy). For this purpose, the political concept of alleged "milestones" was constructed, for which no competence restrictions were provided. This model has already been put into practice in the alleged EU neighbourhood policy, but it afraid non-EU countries curious in EU financial assistance. It has now been transferred to the associate States, which, of course, has completely changed its nature and political sense.
In fact, present it is impossible to foretell how this fresh strategy of Community and sovereign supervision of associate States' policies can further develop. This depends on at least 2 factors that are unknown today: erstwhile – on how long the Union budget will be redistributive for the full continent, due to the fact that without a promise of money, this mysterious supervisory strategy would gotta collapse overnight. 2 – from whether and erstwhile there will be any more serious rebellion of a group of associate States against oppressive supervision. This is not the case for the moment, as pragmatic ruling politicians in the associate States value the supply of external funds stabilizing their power more than the political presence of their own and their own governments. An example of the current Polish Prime Minister may be considered textbook in this respect.
We already know that, contrary to the current opinion from any of the major crises that have affected Europe in fresh years, it is impossible to learn about the systemic leadership of the Community institutions over the conventional state. The extraordinary paradox of today's Union is, therefore, that this circumstantial fresh expression of perverse federalism wins in Europe just erstwhile it does not service the political power of the Union, but only a extremist change in interior relations of power. The current bizarre situation of Poland is an excellent example. The desire to change power in Warsaw is so strong in Brussels that, in the midst of the ongoing war with satisfaction, a border associate State would be brought to ruin in order to accomplish its goal. This is why the problem of Poland with the Union is being raised today. erstwhile again, an old reflection of Machiavelle is confirmed, according to which this fierce pursuit of achieving hegemony, and not declared political goals, is usually a actual driving force for politics and history.
photo: pixabay
