Mateusz Morawiecki told Channel 4 News his “pro-European” Polish Government had the preservation of the European Union stability at heart but that it could not always agree with the “stubborn” approach of some EU Institutions in Brussels. The Poland Prime Minister accused the European Commission of being “impartial” and failing to be the “honest broker” as it ought to be supporting EU member states.
Asked whether he believed Brussels was interfering in Polish and Hungarian domestic affairs, he replied: “Yes, Brussels is one-sided and it’s not impartial any more, it’s not an honest broker as we call it.
“The European Commission should be an honest broker and even during our conversation I have made many examples in which on one hand they are very much praised by Brussels.
“On the other hand, they are very stubborn in not finding compromises with ourselves.
“Even these days we are actually fulfilling all the requirements from the so-called interim judgement by the European Court of Justice.
“Even if we disagree with lots of what they say, we said to ourselves okay, because we want the stability and we want to preserve the unity.
“We want to show that we are very much pro-European.
“And by the way, Poland is one of very few countries within the European Union which is at the same time pro-American and pro-European.”
When Channel 4 News host Matt Frei asked the Polish leader whether he could “have it both ways” and be pro-European as well as critical of the EU, Mr Morawiecki said: “Yes, of course. Because pro-European doesn’t mean we are endorsing everything the European Institutions in Brussels do. In particular, some institutions.
“But on the other hand we look in a realistic way at what is happening and we try to find a compromise with them.”
The Polish Prime Minister refused to accept many political parties and governments in Europe should be labelled as “populist”, arguing that putting Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel on one side of the coin and Viktor Orban and himself on the other would be a “misleading representations” of the current situation in Europe.
He added: “In many countries, those populist parties are actually much stronger than those mainstream parties these days so what does it tell us?
“Doesn’t it tell you that people want to cry and shout out to Brussels that we want more democracy, to be listened to, we want some changes within the European Union?”