Ursula von der Leyen spoke a few sentences in Polish on Tuesday morning.
Translated, she said: “Poland, you are and will remain the heart of Europe!
Long live Poland!
Long live Europe! '
It was also an attempt to communicate directly with the Poles, the vast majority of whom support their country's membership of the European Union.
And it was an attempt to grab the supporters of the national-conservative PiS government by their pride.
Thomas Gutschker
Political correspondent for the European Union, NATO and the Benelux countries based in Brussels.
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But there was one thing it wasn't: a description of political reality.
If the day on which the European Parliament in Strasbourg and the European Ministers in Luxembourg debated the rule of law in Poland in parallel has shown one thing, it is this: Poland has moved to the very edge of Europe.
His government spoke of the EU institutions as if it were a foreign, violent power - as if it were the Soviet Union.
She only received applause for this from right-wing populists and right-wing radicals who themselves want to abolish the European Union.
The others, from the left to the Christian Democrats, then agreed that Poland was marching further and further towards the abyss, towards the exit.
From the commission it was said: "Nothing has become easier."
No moderate tone in Strasbourg
Could that have been Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki's intention when he decided to go to Strasbourg himself and intervene in the debate on the consequences of the constitutional court ruling? It was clear that he was going to the lion's den with it. Nowhere is his country so much under attack. Sometimes it's about the takeover of independent media by government-affiliated investors, then about discrimination against sexual minorities, then again about non-compliance with the judgments of the European Court of Justice. This Wednesday, the restriction of the right to abortion is on the agenda. There is always a three-quarters majority condemning Poland's course. In order to gain sympathy and start a new dialogue, the head of government would have had to disarm.
The letter he had written to all the governments the day before and immediately made public sounded that way too. Yes, he warned against a central European state that was becoming independent. But it also contained all the confessions that Europe expects from Poland: the primacy of European law and European jurisprudence. The tone was moderate, in places legal, sometimes even a little subdued. But when Morawiecki stood in front of the MPs on Tuesday, he did not manage to hit the same tone. Last week he had already given essential parts of his speech in the Polish Parliament. Things are confrontational there, and the Prime Minister carried this style to Strasbourg.
Poland presented Morawiecki as a victim of sinister machinations, as a "second class member".
He accused the EU Commission and the European Court of Justice for not adhering to the common law: “It cannot be that you force your own decisions on others without a legal basis.
Nor can it be that financial blackmail and sanctions are used for this. ”The head of government admitted that“ the rule of law cannot function without the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, compliance with the principle of individual authorization and the hierarchy of legal sources ”.