EU Launches “Atomic”
Attack On Poland
- PostEagle
- December 28, 2017
- Uncategorized
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By Robert Strybel
Warsaw Correspondent
WARSAW–The European Commission, the EU’s executive, has launched its infamous Article Seven against. Poland. Referred to by the media as the EU’s “nuclear weapon”, the unprecedented measure was invoked for the first time ever and could lead to stripping Poland of its voting rights in the 27-country bloc and slashing its cash subsidies.
The official reason was Brussels’ claim that Poland’s recent judicial reforms “would undermine the independence of Polish courts.” Among other things, the EC contends that lowering the mandatory retirement age of Supreme Court justices to 65 would remove 40% of them from office but fails to note that the retired judges are all communist-era holdovers. The EC has also ignored the fact that the Polish reforms have been based on many solutions used in the judicial systems of other countries including Germany, Spain and the US.
“After Poland regained its independence in 1989, communist-era judges have dominated the Polish courts down to the present,” Poland’s new Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki explained. “Poland’s judiciary is a closed elitist clique not subject to any checks, balances or public accountability. Favors go to friends, vengeance is wreaked on rivals and bribes are demanded in some of the most lucrative-looking cases.” He added that over 80% of the Polish people support the reforms, but those arguments have been largely ignored by the EU’s powers that be and their supportive liberal-leftstream media.
The judicial reforms appear to be just another pretext for the liberal-leftist-dominated EC and other EU organs to attack Poland’s conservative government ever since it came to power. However, they have failed to come up with a single argument of their own, preferring to side with and uncritically repeat the charges of Poland’s resentful opposition which still hasn’t come to terms with its landslide 2015 defeat at the polls.
The EU’s copious lip-service to such high-sounding principles as democracy and the rule of law cannot conceal the fact that the Brussels bureaucracy is essentially a business arrangement which supports the most powerful interest groups. The EC has sued Poland after Polish foresters felled diseased trees in Poland’s primeval Białowieża Forest, claiming the country was destroying its natural heritage. But no such measures were taken when the open-pit mine builders cleared successive areas of Germany’s 12,000-year-old Hambach Forest which since 1978 has dwindled to 10% of its original size.
/Previous Polish governments were favored by Brussels, because they sold off most of Poland’s industrial assets, encouraged the country’s takeover by big Western banks and retail chains and provided free or low-cost land and cheap manpower for foreign assembly plants. Polish officials enjoyed hefty kickbacks for their “hospitality”, so everyone was happy.
The present conservative government has denounced that neo-colonial arrangement. It actually wants Poles to have a say in their own country’s economy, promotes Polish entrepreneurship and has bought back formerly Polish banks and other companies taken over by foreign capital. It also declares that the security of the Polish people takes precedence over Brussels-imposed quotas forcing countries to accept a set quota of unregistered Muslim aliens.
The EC’s anti-Polish crusade, however, may turn out to be just so much bluster. In order to impose Article Seven sanctions, the unanimous support of all EU members except the accused country is required, and Hungarian leader Victor Orbán has said his country would never vote against Poland. But to re-assert its dominance, the EC has issued an ultimatum giving Poland three months to withdraw its judicial reforms and revert to the previous post-communist status quo. Which side are you rooting for: Warsaw or Brussels?
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FOLLOW-UP STORY
What Crimes Did Poland Commit?
WARSAW–During the week before Christmas, the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, rolled out its never-before-used mega-artillery against Poland. It did so even before Polish President Andrzej Duda had signed into law two controversial bills which the EC take exception to.
Did Poland violate the EU’s flagship Schengen Treaty by opening the continent to hordes of unregistered Muslim migrants, endangering public secno-go zones? No, that was Germany. Did Poland in collusion with Putin’s Russia launch a policy endangering Central Europe’s energy security in violation of EU principles? No, that also was Germany.
Did Poland violate its constitution by failing to call new elections required after a month of unsuccessful attempts to form a government? No, that was also Germany. Did Poland start destroying a 12,000-year-old primeval forest back in 1978 to make way for ongoing lignite-mine expansion to where the woodland is now down to 10% of its original ares? No, that too was Germany.
Did Polish politicians get arrested for defying the government and did Poland unleash the most brutal police violence in EU history agaisnt peaceful protesters demanding the right of self-determination? No, that was Spain. Did a journalist die when her car exploded after reporting that the Polish prime minister’s wife was channeling bribes to a bank account in Panama? No, that was Malta. Has Poland turned into a mafia state known for money laundering, organized crime, corruption and a court system unable or unwilling to prosecute the criminals? No, that too was Malta.
Has Poland consistently violated EU principles of free-market competition by pursuing a protectionist policy towards its agricultural sector as well as effectively endangering the livelihood of Central European truckers? And has Poladn openly flaunted the EC’s deficit-reduction targets? No, in all three cases that was France.
Has Poland repeatedly violated EU clean-air standards despite infringement proceedings against it? No, it was France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain that failed to protect its citizens against dangerous levels of air pollution.
In none of those cases did the EC see fit to trigger its notoriously “atomic” Article 7 which could strip a country of EU voting rights and downsize its subsidies. What heinous crime or crimes then has Poland committed to warrant such a high-caliber crackdown?
During the last election campaign, Poland’s conservative Law and Justice party pledged to clean up the judiciary which a quarter-century after the fall of communism was still full of judges who had sworn their allegiance to the Soviet-installed Polish puppet state and had sent Solidarity activists to prison. A majority of Polish lawmakers and the country’s president also felt that the judiciary should not be a privileged self-serving clique devoid of all public oversight and rife with corruption, including “telephone judges” doing the bidding of wealthy and powerful clients.
But that is not all. Today’s Poland has long list of other “transgressions” on its conscience such as no longer wanting to be a docile client-state of powerful foreign-.interest groups. It wants Polish citizens to have more say in how Poland’s economy and the country in general is run. It wants the EU to be a voluntary union of sovereign states, not a federation of provinces ruled by the Brussels Bureaucracy.
Adding insult to injury, the overwhelming majority of Poles are proud of their native land and want to uphold their nation’s traditonal Catholic heritage. Yes, most Poles espouse such values as God, family and country which seem to be a giant turn-off to today’s leftist-liberal powers that be.
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