Tusk for EU like Gierek towards USSR
Czesław Ryszka
The Polish presidency in the European Union and also the activity of Jerzy Buzek as the chairman of the European Parliament finished with the end of the year. Both missions in the pro-governmental media were summarized as a Polish success. In reality, both the role of the Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the chairman Jerzy Buzek restricted only to administering the matters which are prepared by the union commissioners. Let somebody show me something good after our presidency and after the leadership of Jerzy Buzek, an idea, and an important legal act! For example, the French presidency closed the works on the climate package, Great Britain -on the seven-year-old budget of the EU, Germany managed to negotiate the Lisbon treaty, Finland has won its European agency for the control of chemical substances in the industrial production, etc. Whereas, during the Polish presidency - not wanting to irritate Brussels - we did not fight for anything for our country. We forgot about the need of settling extra payments to Polish farmers, we helped to destroy Polish fishing and the shipbuilding industry, we did not take up renegotiations in the matter of useless climate package for us, we did not engage in the Eastern partnership, we were not interested in the demographic decrease in Europe and as a result, we did not think about the common family policy. Anyway, we were interested only in media coxcombry, organizing meetings for the public. Even the accession treaty with Croatia was signed in Brussels but not in Warsaw. There will also remain some disgust after the Polish presidency, because we did not manage to take a place as a country of presidency at the table of meetings in the group of the sphere of euro, and without the right of voice (our minister was excluded from this kind of meetings, and plans of financial help were discussed without our presence). An opposition activist was imprisoned in Belarus also of our fault only because Poland gave all the data of the reserved number of the account of this activist to Belarus prosecutors. As the country representing the EU, we did not do anything, when in the non-democratic process the Ukrainian court sentenced the Prime Minister Julia Tymoszenko for 7 years of imprisonment. The fruits of the Polish presidency are well reflected by the speech by the Prime Minister Donald Tusk in the European Parliament, finishing our mission - it was exactly like from half a year ago, that is, without specific details and full of slogans in the style: 'we want more Europe', 'we support deepening of the solidary cooperation', 'we should give more authority to the centre'. Despite the government propaganda, this allegedly very important speech by the Prime Minister Donald Tusk was listened by - apart from Poles - about 35 euro-deputies (per 750). It says a lot about the importance of Poland in the EU. The last accent of our presidency was the summit meeting of the EU leaders which was supposed to save the union from the collapse of the sphere of euro. It finished with a complete defeat for Poland. 17 countries of the Euroland and some countries outside the sphere of euro, including Poland, agreed to implement new rules of discipline of public finances. They plan, among the others, to introduce automatic sanctions for breaching the discipline of budget for countries exceeding the limits of deficit and public debts, and also to include the so-called golden rule of keeping balanced budgets in the national constitutions by all the countries. It is to be executed by the European Tribunal of Justice. Shortly speaking, we gave back the control over the budget and The National Polish Bank (Pol. NBP) to the union clerks. What is more, it was agreed at the summit meeting - that 200 milliards euro would be given to the International Currency Fund, which will allocate them to help for the indebted economies; 150 milliards euro would come from the banks of the central countries of the sphere of euro, and 50 milliards euro - from the banks of the countries outside the sphere of euro. Although the confinement of this fiscal policy was opposed by Great Britain, Switzerland, Czechs and Hungary, the Polish Prime Minister willingly agreed on limiting the sovereignty of our country, and what is more, he declared that poorer Poland would add money to richer countries endangered by bankruptcy. It means that we will give about 7 milliards euro, that is, 10% of the annual budget to rescue Greece, Italy or Spain. And this is to be the most important success which was enforced by Donald Tusk during his presidency! The high-minded Prime Minister Tusk gives this money for nothing, as we do not get any benefits for that, but we are going to be only the 'listeners' of the meetings of finance ministers of the sphere euro, ant then, according to the accepted commitment, we will have to implement it in Poland. And what is the worst, the Prime Minister, declaring to join the treaty, which gives our budget under the control by Brussels, ignored the Polish parliament and breached the Polish constitution. The comment can be only one: Poland, giving the disinterested help to the sphere of euro, will be engaged in the currency crisis in the EU (Italy generated nearly 2 billions euro of debt). Therefore, an old joke reminds to me about the leading role of a party and trade with the Soviet Union which can be compared to the future relationships with the EU: Poland within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Pol. RWPG) gave corn to USSR, while it was generously taking coal from us.
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"Niedziela" 01/2012