Nawrocki said he opposed projects aimed at centralizing the bloc, warning that allowing member states to be outvoted would strip all but the two largest countries of sovereignty and weaken democratic systems.
He said the starting point for debate on the EU’s future must be the assumption that member states remain “masters of the treaties” and sovereign decision makers on the shape of European integration.
The president said Poland supported preserving unanimity in areas where it now applies and retaining the “one country, one commissioner” rule, under which every EU member has its own commissioner in the bloc’s executive.
Nawrocki proposed that only candidates recommended by their national governments should be eligible for the EU’s top posts.
He called for returning the presidency of the EU to the head of government of the member state holding the rotating chair of the Council of the EU, restoring the pre-Lisbon Treaty model.
“In this context, Poland also proposes abolishing the position of president of the European Council,” Nawrocki said, arguing the role should again be held by a president, prime minister or chancellor with a democratic mandate, rather than a “bureaucrat-official dependent on the support of the great powers of the EU”.
He said a similar change should apply to the Foreign Affairs Council, which is now chaired by an EU official rather than the foreign minister of the country holding the presidency.
Nawrocki called for changes to the EU Council voting system to limit the advantage of the largest states and urged the bloc to act pragmatically, without “ideological pressure”. He said EU competences should be limited to selected areas, such as economic development and demographic policy.
On security, he urged the EU to abandon ambitions of competing with NATO and criticized efforts to centralize defense procurement, saying they favored German and French arms industries and ignored the needs of countries on the alliance’s eastern flank.
He also called for rejection of the European Commission’s Digital Services Act, saying that “any form of censorship” was alien to Poland’s political culture.
Nawrocki stressed he supported Poland’s EU membership but said institutional matters, the justice system and security were “reserved exclusively for the Polish constitution, the Polish president and the Polish government”. He said his role was to help build “a stronger Central Europe within the EU” in cooperation with other countries in the region.
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Source: PAP