A SENIOR Vatican figure has attacked the European Union’s current stance on Poland, after the European Commission in Brussels gave the country’s centre-right government a month to modify its judicial reforms or face sanctions.
“Europe is made up of many nations – the EU should take an example from Poland, since it’s thanks to countries like this that the EU has developed,” said Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the Vatican’s former Secretary of State.
“Poland shouldn’t take lessons on the meaning of democracy and freedom from politicians in Brussels or Strasbourg, and we should respect the Polish authorities, who were democratically elected,” he added.
The German cardinal was addressing Catholics in Wigry, in north-east Poland, as EU officials warned that they would take Poland to the European Court of Justice after concluding that the Polish government’s reforms to the justice system were “incompatible with EU law”.
Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party (PIS) has faced opposition since its 2015 election landslide over a programme of wide-ranging reforms, including the forcible retirement of some Supreme Court judges, which critics say would centralise power and restrict free speech.
In November 2017, the European Parliament demanded the suspension of Poland’s voting rights and decision-making, while in mid-August the Commission said the PIS government, headed by Mateusz Morawiecki, had failed to “alleviate legal concerns”, and gave it one month to amend the changes or face action from the European Court of Justice.
Meanwhile, Poland’s Catholic primate urged Catholics to use the upcoming centenary of the restoration of Polish independence in 1918 to reflect on values and priorities. “An independent Poland doesn’t mean walls and barbed wire, raised in fear and hatred, but hands outstretched in forgiveness and love”, Archbishop Wojciech Polak of Gniezno told a Mass on Sunday at Inowroclaw.
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