Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, who as a Polish MP was primarily responsible for negotiating Poland’s accession to the European Union in 2004, has said that the bloc’s institutions are acting increasingly in the manner of an “oligarchy”.
Saryusz-Wolski, an MEP from Poland’s ruling Conservative PiS party, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that: “EU institutions are increasingly acting against the law. Make decisions first, then seek the basis … I call this potential creation an oligarchic superstate.”
He warned that there is a majority in the European Parliament that is ready to turn the EU into just such a superstate. Saryusz-Wolski represents the European Conservative Reformers (ECR) in the Constitutional Committee of the Parliament. The committee is working on a report examining potential changes to EU treaties.
The senior MEP believes that a majority of political groups in the Parliament are ready and willing to give much more power to Brussels – at the expense of EU Member States.
He cited the elimination of Member State vetoes and a proposal to amend an article of the Lisbon Treaty relating to values so that “equality between men and women” is reworded as “gender equality”.
Saryusz-Wolski believes that the notion of introducing gender equality into European treaties is designed to enable Brussels to become a “battering ram” to enforce cultural revolution across Member States.
He said that marked the “usurping of powers by EU institutions in favour of interference in the internal politics of Member states”. This is to be done under the pretext of defending the freedom of speech and media as well as gender equality, he argued.
To counter that, Saryusz-Wolski has been pushing the case for creating a “subsidiarity chamber” in the European Court of Justice, which would be made up of the heads of the EU nations’ courts. This, he said, would defend Member States against actions that go beyond existing EU treaties.
In May this year he warned that Germany and France were attempting to turn the EU into “an oligarchic superstate” and that was a “serious threat” to the sovereignty of smaller and medium-sized Member States.
His remarks came in response to a speech at the Parliament by the German chancellor Olaf Scholz, who called for the removal of the EU nations’ right of veto over foreign and security policy matters.
Saryusz-Wolski in the 1990s was Poland’s minister responsible for preparing the country for EU accession negotiations. In the 1990s he was MEP for the Liberal PO party led by Donald Tusk.
He parted company with Tusk over what he saw as the EU’s drift away from being a union of Member States, and became a PiS MEP.
In 2017, Poland’s ruling Conservatives nominated him as a candidate for the job of President of the European Council in opposition to the then-incumbent Tusk.
