Remix

Poland’s primary objective should be to weaken the position of Germany and the EU so that it can block their pro-Russian orientation, argues senior conservative politician Marian Piłka

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, writing in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, presented a vision of the EU in which the union would become one geopolitical entity that Germany would take responsibility for. This will only be possible, argued Scholz, if EU member states accept the removal of the power of the veto. That would mark the completion of the process of federalizing Europe that began with the Maastricht Treaty, which saw the introduction of a single European currency, and has continued with the Lisbon Treaty, which introduced qualified majority voting.

This process has also been reinforced with the behavior of the European Court of Justice, and the doctrine of the supremacy of European law over domestic legislation and constitutions.

However, neither Germany nor France’s top courts recognize the supremacy of European laws giving both these states a privileged position in the EU, which is not afforded to other member states facing penalties for non-compliance with European court and European Commission decisions. They can also be made to change their governments or key policies, as has been the case with Italy and Greece.

What Scholz has effectively called for is for putting into statute the existing political and economic domination of Germany and the transformation of the EU into a Fourth Reich, a state with a quasi-democratic and quasi-federal structure.

It is reminiscent of the creation and development of the 19^th century Franco-Prussian Second Reich with the domination of Prussia that had also begun with a customs union and the creation of a single market. It is worth recalling that the constituent parts of that entity had different statuses. For instance, Bavaria kept its army and diplomacy. A status of this type in the EU would be reserved for France, while the role of Poland and other states would be reduced to that similar to the German Lander.

Poland would have to give up its currency so that its development could be contained. Already, Berlin tries to achieve that by attempting to block Poland from having nuclear power capacity and by attempting to force it to share its gas energy resources.

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