KPP (COMMUNIST PARTY OF POLAND)
Mirosław Piotrowski
This abbreviation has been associated for decades with the Communist Polish Party which Józef Wissarionowicz Stalin ‘dissolved’ in 1938. To make it more specified, he invited its main activists to Moscow and gave an order to shot them to death. For those who are following the development of the European Union, the KPP is mainly the abbreviation of the Card of Primary Rights. Nine years ago it gained legal character in relation to implementing the Lisbon Treaty in practice. Well, I remember that turmoil. The prime minister of Poland at that time, Donald Tusk was doing everything to accept the Lisbon Treaty, that is, the mini-euro constitution, and the president of the Republic of Poland Lech Kaczyński was objecting to KPP. Finally, it was agreed that in return for the signature of the president under the Lisbon Treaty, the prime minister would resign from the KPP. Besides that, our president was not struggling with this problem in the Union alone. Protests against KPP were made by the British. So, a special protocol was attached to the Lisbon Treaty, which describes the opt-out principle, which excludes Poland and Great Britain from jurisdiction of the EU within KPP. Signatures were given by all suitable representatives of EU membership countries. It seemed that in Poland we said farewell to this issue when, suddenly, quite recently, it has been renewed by the Supreme Court. Our Polish one. Its judges, remaining in a strange dispute with the Polish parliament and president, thinking that they are discriminated because of their age, decided to appeal to the supreme EU juridical instance. So, they crossed out questions to the Tribunal of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg. They applied a ‘prejudicial’ mode, envisaged by the Lisbon Treaty. ‘What a stone is like, so is a blow – no wonder’ – Edyta Geppert sang, but here I was surprised by the questions: the first, the second, the fourth and the fifth ones. In them, among the others, a request for interpretation of the article 47KPP. I am not a lawyer, but I can ask: Why does the Supreme Court need interpretation of one of the document articles, which does not bind Poland directly? In this context I recalled a situation from years ago, when my colleague working in the Human Resources of a university, was asked about her husband – a musicologist, organist by a staff superior. It did not have any relation with the work done by my colleague, but the superior wanted to know whether her husband played at the Holy Masses in the church of the Franciscans. And because the subject of interests was a graduate of this university, he arrived there, assuring the staff superior that he did not play there. It did not calm his wife’s superior and she demanded his bringing a document certifying that he did not play in the parish. – Dear Lady – said the colleague – but I do not play in the church of the Dominicans or the Jesuits in the arch-cathedral or in a parish in Czechów. Shall bring certifications like that from everyone? This is absurd, communism – he expressed his grief in when talking with me. Shouldn’t we feel KPP not binding us in these categories, and at least some provisions? KPP has got 54 articles, and the Supreme Court asked about 47. Maybe it is worth continuing reading. My favourite article is the 51 par. 2, so I will quote it in a whole” ‘This Charter does not extend the range of applying law of the Union outside the competences of the Union, or does not introduce new competences or tasks of the Union or it does not change competences or tasks defined in the treaties’. Uff…So, what is this KPP for? - one would like to ask. Should it be ‘solved’ at all?
Translated by Aneta Amrozik
Niedziela 34/2018 (26 VIII 2018)