by polskie radio
In a column for the Austrian newspaperâs website, journalist and author Karl-Peter Schwarz questioned the rationale of politicians and journalists who “intend to give the Polish, Hungarian and Slovenian people lessons in democracy and the rule of law,â according to Polish online daily dziennik.pl.
âShouldnât Germans and Austrians be verbally defusing the dispute, instead of fanning the flames?,â Schwarz asked in his piece, entitled âPoland at the forefront of a European counter-revolution,â as quoted by the Polish news outlet on Thursday.
He argued that any declarations of guilt on the part of Germans and Austrians, for the crimes committed by their forefathers in Poland and other countries, âlose credibility when you threaten those states and blackmail their governments,” dziennik.pl reported.
âThe current conflict with Poland concerns the primacy of EU law over national, including constitutional, law,â Schwarz said.
“This primacy is not enshrined in the EUâs Treaties, but flows from the verdicts issued by the blocâs Court of Justice (CJEU),â he added.
Having ratified the Lisbon Treaty, âPoland must recognise the primacy of the CJEU, but so should Germany, whose Constitutional Tribunal ruled that a buy-out of the European Central Bankâs bonds was unconstitutional in aspects approved by the CJEU,â Schwartz wrote in his column, according to dziennik.pl.
âYet Poland is citing the German case in vain, for in the EU there are first-class, second-class and third-class members,â he argued.
Schwarz also wrote was that EU law âfrom the outset was political in natureâ because its aim was ever closer integration, as reflected in Article 1 of the Lisbon Treaty, dziennik.pl reported.
It quoted Schwarz as saying that Poland was not the only EU member that was “disputing the CJEUâs role as the ultimate arbiter of the quality of the rule of law in member states.”
Germanyâs constitutional judges have also called for “constitutional pluralism,” according to Schwarz, as quoted by dziennik.pl, while ex-Brexit negotiator and French presidential candidate Michel Barnier “is urging his country to regain legal sovereignty.â
Polandâs Constitutional Tribunal âis clearly calling into question a model of European integration in which judges force elected politicians to forge an ever closer Union,â Schwarz also wrote, according to dziennik.pl.
âThe EU is facing a veritable democratic counter-revolution, a counter-revolution that submits for discussion the old, only superficially solved, problem of national sovereignty in the context of a confederation of countries,â he was quoted as saying.
âThis counter-revolution emanates from the states of the Visegrad Group (comprising Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic), but it is receiving backing in other countries, as well,â Schwarz concluded, as cited by the Polish website.
Nicht nur VisegrĂĄd-Staaten stellen das Primat des EU-Gerichtshofs in Frage. Das Ziel der âimmer engeren Unionâ stöĂt zunehmend auf Widerstand. https://t.co/ipypDSbeXE
— Karl-Peter Schwarz (@KP_Schwarz) October 26, 2021
Karl-Peter Schwarz is a former long-time correspondent of various Austrian and German media outlets in Central and Eastern Europe, now a freelance journalist and author, dziennik.pl said.
(pm/gs)
Source:Â dziennik.pl