Friday, November 22, 2024
World

EU enemies of conservative governments

The European Parliament in Strasbourg during a plenary session in 2014 (Source: Wikimedia Commons/Diliff/GNU Free Documentation License)

There is no shortage of people in the European Parliament and other important EU structures who are building their careers on attacks targeting the conservative governments. Many of them, however, have no problem tolerating left-wing despotism.

Małgorzata Wołczyk

If in 2003, on the day we voted to join the EU, we would have been told that by doing so we were agreeing that Poland should renounce its sovereignty, Christian roots, and accept the diktat of leftist ideologues – we would have considered the interlocutor to be out of his mind. After all, we willingly signed up for the EU project of the Servant of God, Robert Schuman, and even Saint John Paul II himself strongly supported our accession. Meanwhile, 18 years have passed, and almost every day we find out that this is not a “community,” but another external power center that ruthlessly takes away our ability to self-determine and persecutes us internationally. Nearly 2 years after Brexit, we are astonished to discover how accurate Nigel Farage’s words were when, in his farewell speech to the EU, he reminded us that the UK was signing up for the Common Market and not a political organization that is already planning to even have its own army. It is therefore a pleasure to quote his words:

“I want Brexit to start a debate across the rest of Europe. What do we want from Europe? If we want trade, friendship, cooperation, reciprocity, we don’t need a European Commission. We don’t need a European Court. We don’t need these institutions and all of this power. And I can promise you, both in UKIP and indeed in the Brexit party, we love Europe; we just hate the European Union. It’s a simple as that. So I’m hoping this begins the end of this project. It’s a bad project. It isn’t just undemocratic, it’s anti—democratic, and it puts in that front row, it gives people power without accountability – people who cannot be held to account by the electorate. And that is an unacceptable structure!”

In addition, over years of propaganda processing, Poles have been taught to equate Europe with EU bodies, and to think of MEPs as a club of gentlemen with impeccable reputations who have the mandate and moral right to do whatever they like with us, especially if it coincides with the opposition’s wish list. An opposition that is not so much anti-government but actually anti-Poland.

The problem also lies in the fact that even a cursory glimpse into the biographies of leading EU officials brings disbelief and frustration. For we stand helpless in the face of the fact that people who whole-heartedly speak about respect for the rule of law have more than once come into conflict with the law or are facing serious charges from which they have somehow miraculously managed to clear themselves.

But let’s start with the top brass, because Ursula von der Leyen has pilloried Poland unusually often. This protégé of Angela Merkel was personified as a reserve chancellor, but her disastrous management of the Defense Ministry and numerous scandals have plunged her into the German public eye. In 2015, the first crack appeared in her image: the VroniPlag website, after analyzing 62 pages of her doctoral dissertation, accused von der Leyen of 43.5% plagiarism. Across Germany, allegations of plagiarism had already swept a couple of personalities from the political scene (including 2 of Chancellor Merkel’s ministers), so the matter seemed serious. Yet the head of the Bundeswehr managed to defend herself, as Chancellor Merkel and the alma mater of her hometown of Hanover rushed to her rescue. An “independent and expert” Ethics Committee found irregularities, as it detected “elements of plagiarism,” but in the end the work turned out to meet “scientific criteria.” In parallel with the allegation of plagiarism, the German press found lies in her resume and titles that Stanford University could not offer her. The case came to nothing, however, as a blunder followed another. Von der Leyen’s reputation in her homeland was nosediving day by day after a series of scandals related to, as they put it: “right-wing extremism.”

Ursula von der Leyen in front of the EU Parliament, 2019 (CC-BY-4.0: © European Union 2019 – Source: EP)

After a collection of memorabilia and medals from the Third Reich were found in a barracks, and German soldiers from the UN mission were found to be playing Nazis, the Defense Minister came under fire from critics. As if that wasn’t enough, an affair erupted, putting her name once again at the top of all European news portals. Here was a Bundeswehr officer, Lieutenant Franco A., who registered himself as a Syrian asylum seeker, and at the same time built up a terrorist cell with the aim of carrying out attacks on leading German politicians (known, by the way, for their liberal attitude to immigrants), and in such a way as to make it look to the general public like another attack by Islamic radicals. In doing so, it came to light that his villainous inclinations had already been known about, but no disciplinary action had been taken in advance. Despite her lack of control over the ministry, she was reappointed Defense Chief in Merkel’s new government in 2018. And a scandal erupted again, this time bringing her before the Investigative Committee on charges of nepotism.

“The ministry, which von der Leyen headed between 2013-19, entered into multimillion-dollar contracts without holding tenders for them. In the first six months of this year alone, the ministry contracted consulting firms for work worth 154 million euros – more than any other ministry in Angela Merkel’s government paid for such services (the other 14 ministries signed contracts for a total of 178 million euros).” – Gazeta Wyborcza honestly reported more than two years ago, when they still didn’t know how useful it would prove in hammering the United Right government. Somehow, however, no one in the left-wing media feels any discomfort that Commissioner Von der Leyen, whose track record includes the referenced colorful dishonors and corruption scandals, is upholding the honest spending of European funds. One may ask by what miracle a politician whose name has been linked to countless disgraces and allegations of cronyism took the top post in the EU. Apparently, what the Germans themselves call “the right smell” (Stallgeruch), or to put it simply, the right pedigree, was at play. Her father Ernst Albrecht was a well-known CDU activist, prime minister of Lower Saxony and one of Germany’s first European civil servants. They also say of her that she based her success on the image of a successful woman who, as she claimed in interviews, experienced sexism, but emerged victorious from those struggles against the heteropatriarchy. In the modern, feminized world, the decision to have a woman lead the EU proved to be the most important. All the scandals of her biography faded in the face of the charm of her delicate figure in well-tailored suits. Years later, it seems that the nickname the Germans bestowed on her for her campaigns for stronger control of the Internet: ”Zensursula” (a verbal mix of the words censorship and Ursula), seems to us Poles to correspond quite appropriately to her actions.

And yet the German woman is just the tip of the iceberg. Josep Borrell – the EU’s high commissioner and head of European diplomacy – replaced Federica Mogherini, famous for her helpless sobbing, in the post. The qualitative change was that all those who look at the irreparable damage of his policies now feel like crying. Despite numerous calls for his resignation from MEPs from various countries – he is clinging to his seat. Unluckily for all of us, this is the seat not only of the head of diplomacy, but also of security policy, and that is why, barely after two years in office, Borella has all the frontline EU countries in apparent danger. On the one hand, the periphery of EU’s eastern flank is hosting the most devastating war since 1945. On the other hand, the southern European countries, including Borrell’s homeland, are experiencing a record invasion of illegal immigrants from Africa and destabilization of the areas most vulnerable to the operations of the various NGOs and traffickers who have participated in this smuggling of illegal immigrants for years. In addition, his “security” policies have resulted in a real increase in danger on the streets of European cities. What is scandalous and hardly ever discussed in Poland, are Borrell’s ties to the Cuban and Venezuelan communist regimes. It should be known that Borrell, by virtue of his party affiliation, is implicitly entangled in the existence of these criminal regimes, which is why the Spanish government – unlike the Polish one – did not sign on to the call by the U.S. State Department and heads of foreign ministries from 21 countries “on the communist authorities in Havana to respect the human rights and freedoms of the Cuban people.”

Of course, in the European mainstream media, the regimes are represented only by Poland and Hungary, so we won’t hear a word about the socialists’ ties to the authentic tyrannies of Ibero-America. There are obscure issues behind Borrell. As the ABC daily reported on November 28th, 2018:

“The Securities Market Commission believes Borrell committed a very serious crime when, in 2015, while serving as an advisor to Abengoa, just two days before the company filed for bankruptcy, he sold shares in the company on behalf of his ex-wife. As a result, the stock exchange supervisor believes he used privileged, confidential information – he was a member of the company – to mitigate his wife’s losses on the stock market.”

The diplomatic chief’s achievement is best summed up by a comment from the official Twitter account of the EP’s VOX party on June 6th of this year:

“Borrell must step down IMMEDIATELY. Being the EU’s worst foreign minister was difficult, given his predecessors. However, the humiliations Borrell subjects the Union to and his complicity in the world’s worst tyrannies deprive him of the ability to represent anything.”

Recently, Josep Borrell has discredited himself even in those circles where he was adored, with his tales of Europe as a “garden” contrasted with the “jungle” that is the rest of the world. Even the New York Times, normally so sympathetic to EU federalization, found that Borrell’s “crude comments point to bigger problems” for the EU. It’s just that this delightful “garden” for Borrell and his kind only includes Western Europe, while the jungle encompasses EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe. And that’s why they constantly try to impose their “European values” on their supposedly morally inferior neighbors, represented mainly by Warsaw and Budapest.

Even studies have been produced drawing attention to the EU’s neo-colonialist inclinations. Their author Ian Klinke is a researcher at Oxford University and much of his work focuses on the issue of German geopolitics. Klinke’s research highlighted “the neo-colonial overtones echoed throughout the EU’s eastward enlargement, particularly through the ideologically tinged goals of ‘Europeanization,’ ‘modernization,’ and ‘liberalization’ of a space that has been deemed economically and politically inferior.” Thus Josep Borrell, in a fit of sincerity, inadvertently revealed the EU’s real goals – modern, veiled neocolonialism.

But let’s go further, this time shedding some light on the grim figure of Věra Jourova. This is a case in point, an example of an arrogant Eurocrat who, despite a court conviction and being in custody – has been giving lessons in the rule of law to Poland non-stop. In 2006, she was arrested in a corruption case known as the “Budišov affair.” However, since she was not proven guilty in court – the proceedings ended in the summer of 2008. She even received 3.6 million Czech crowns in compensation for her arrest. According to investigative journalist Janek Kroupa, who devoted himself to researching the case, Jourova’s acquittal was due to the brilliant work of her attorneys and, as he expressed it, the deliberate “lethargy” of the police. The journalist points out that Jourová never challenged his reports in court, which proves that its contents were true. We should add that Janek Kroupa is the winner of numerous awards for investigative journalism, and the case involved multi-million dollar embezzlement of EU funds.

Hearing of Věra Jourová in 2019 (Source:Wikimedia Commons/European Parliament/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en)

Let’s recall that the case is about the vice-president of the EC, who from 2019 has been responsible “for respect for the values of the European Union and transparency,” and, to be fair, an acquaintance of George Soros. A picture of the two together was posted on Twitter along with Jourova’s much-talked-about declaration: “Open Society values are at the center of EU activities.”

Our other EP persecutors have also had incredible luck in coming out unscathed from any corruption-related oppression. Spain’s Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office considered prosecuting González Pons as recently as two years ago, but in the end the proceedings were halted because he won a seat as an MEP of the largest EPP Group, and even became its vice president. The man who is passionate about criticizing Poland for its alleged lack of rule of law was himself embroiled in the notorious Gürtel corruption case, which swept the “right-wing” Rajoy government off the political stage and put the Socialist Pedro Sanchez in the prime minister’s seat. “The long and varied tentacles of the Gürtel conspiracy are already fully entwined with the activity of People’s Party deputy and delegation leader Esteban Pons” – so begins an article in the El Plural web portal dated 11.03.2020.

In Spain, which is famous for its structural corruption, the issue of Pons’ ties to the corrupt mafia no longer stirred emotions. More important was the fact that the earlier discovery of this plot had already allowed the left to reach for power with a vote of no confidence in the government. Pons also avoided accountability because his People’s Party ruled in the Valencia region, and the prosecutor’s office was subordinate to it. No one was interested in destroying the career of a party comrade. During this sensitive time, MEP Pons most quietly published his novel “One” (full of erotic themes), which he presented at an author’s evening in the presence of major party leaders. The extent to which Pons, a senior EU functionary, feels impunity is evidenced by the favors he gave to the Chinese giant (Huawei) even when the Polish or British governments were doing everything to obstruct the investment of Chinese companies in the European telecommunications infrastructure. It’s unbelievable that a European politician of such caliber published articles, proclamations openly lobbying for China, and against US domination, even when the “China virus” was already beginning to take a deadly toll in Italy and Spain, Pons’ home country.

The case of another Spaniard who – using his position as chairman of the LIBE Committee on Civil Liberties – is taking a regular part in the harassment of Poland, is even more appalling. The case in question is Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar – former secretary of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party in the Canary Islands, and today an S&D MEP. He is a man discredited in his own homeland for enacting a law that serves punishment based on gender. The law, which was authored and promoted in the Zapatero government by Lopez Aguilar (“professor of constitutional law”!) violates Article 14 of the Spanish Constitution on equality before the law regardless of gender. The law, created by Aguilar, openly discriminates against men and is a pretext for taking away their children and property. The law he co-authored privileges women to the point that in order to put a man behind bars, she only has to provide two uncontradicted confessions with no proof required. Spain is the only country in Europe where this unconstitutional law of the “reverse burden of proof” exists, requiring the accused to provide evidence of his innocence, while the accuser is not required to prove anything. This law is the cause of many suicides among men, family dramas and the so-called “war of the sexes.” Ironically, of course, the law did not apply in the case of its author, as Lopez Aguilar, accused of abusing his wife, was cleared in a remarkably quick manner, although the press and public opinion had no doubts about the validity of the accusations levied against him. The immensity of the injustice is completed by Lopez Aguilar’s famously cynical comment to his compatriots, who were the innocent victims of his act: “False accusations from women constitute an acceptable cost of this bill.” For him, yes, because he himself avoided prison thanks to his mates from the judicial caste.

But let’s give the floor to a well-known Spanish journalist who best explains the absurdity of Aguilar’s attacks on Poland. The man hides under the pseudonym “Elentir” (because of the ETA threat) and runs the Contando Estrellas portal: “It is ironic that Lopez Aguilar, the author of a report critical of the alleged lack of independence of the judiciary in Poland, is a well-known leader of the PSOE, the party that dismantled the tripartite division of power in Spain in the 1980s by politicizing the NCJ and the Constitutional Court. Another absurdity is that Aguilar’s report mentions the situation of threats to free media in Poland, just months after the PSOE government approved a law that allows websites to be shut down without a court order. And all this under the pretext of combating ‘disinformation’ and ‘guaranteeing public and national security.’ As usual, it is Spain’s most anti-freedom left in Europe, which rules in coalition with communists who support dictatorships in Cuba, Venezuela or Belarus, that dares to teach Poland lessons in democracy.”

Let’s look at another model figure in this gallery of EU nobility: Sophie in’t Veld, who, thanks to the EU’s bullying operation against Poland, is finally having a dream career in the salons of Brussels after years of standing in the shadows. Before she began dedicating her activism to Poland, she became famous by calling for the condemnation of Pope Benedict XVI for his criticism of gender ideology and calling for the severance of diplomatic ties with the Vatican.

This MEP for “the rule of law and EU values” belongs to one of the most corrupt parties in the Netherlands, D66, and at one time became synonymous with greed herself, appropriating hundreds of thousands of euros from EU funds as reimbursement for the use of hotels in Brussels, where…she has been living and calling a home for years. Dutch media calculated that she had swindled EU funds in the amount of over 400,000 euros. A childless divorcee, she seems to be devoting all her vitals to denigrating and hammering Poland and Hungary. But not only that, because when asked in a recent July interview with Dutch Libelle: “What is your mission in the European Parliament?” she replied: “I want Europe to become a force for human and civil rights, such as gay rights and euthanasia.”

To some extent, Poles are themselves to blame, as many of those described above are acting to the detriment of Poland at the express request of Poland’s total opposition, elected, as it were, with the votes of our compatriots. One can only hope that the structure of the EU, which is increasingly creaking in its foundations, if only because of the ruthless leadership battles between the mutually hating Von der Leyen, Borrell, and Michel, as recently reported even by the mainstream press, will crumble before our eyes. And it will be reborn in the form designed by its founding fathers, and one that we have been calling for years.