(Article by Piotr Maciej Kaczynski, for 2019euelectionpoland)
Remember the Salvini visit in Warsaw in January? That’s past. On Wednesday, PiS Chairman Jarosław Kaczyński met with the delegation of Brothers of Italy, a ECR party from Italy with no MEPs yet.
The Brothers of Italy joined the ECR back in November. This seems to be a pattern: PiS looks for sovereignist partners in other EU member states to build up a new group after the elections. Take the Italian party. FdI does not have any MEPs (yet), but already joined the ECR and it’s support in Italy is on the rise.
After the meeting, the Italians provided feedback from the meeting. Carlo Fidanza, who attended the meeting of FdI leader Giorgia Meloni and Jarosław Kaczyński, says: “It was a very positive meeting that took place in Warsaw […] and during which we recorded a profound harmony on all the main topics on the agenda and a horizon of common values: those of a modern social and national right, which wants to help those who do business and those who produce but do not forget the reasons of the weakest. This is the government sovereignty that we want to build by strengthening the ECR group which will also be the largest family of European sovereigns in the next European Parliament “.
The Spanish sovereignist party Vox, on the other hand, chose not to join the ECR group just yet, even if the recent meeting between two leaders, Abascal and Kaczyński, was quite successful.
Earlier this year in Paris a new popular Dutch party Forum for Democracy was also admitted into the ECR. No audience in Warsaw for Mr Thierry Baudet of FvD or the Frenchman Nicolas Dupont-Aignan of Debut-la-France just yet.
Souverenist talk Constitutions (national)
FdI wants to remove the EU from the Italian constitution. Meanwhile, the Polish small agrarian party PSL (member of the EPP) just proposed to mention the European Union in the Polish constitution as an attempt to check on the Law and Justice if the party is truly against the so-called Polexit.
Beata Mazurek, PiS spokeswoman reacted: “We do not say ‘no’. Let’s talk about it” before linking the issue of inserting the “EU” in the Polish Constitution with a major Constitutional review. Mazurek: “I think this is a good moment to empower the family, or to write in the Polish state sovereignty over EU institutions involvement into our internal business”. She ended: “We’ll talk”.
Et alors
The souverenist group is in the making, that is clear. This is a different group from the nationalist group of Ms Le Pen. Those two strings of thought seem to be prevailing on the right side. The “direct democracy” crowd of M5S and Kukiz’15 is losing steam.
A new debate started about the change of the Polish Constitution. Ever since Law and Justice took confrontational positions on many issues, a serious debate on the Polish constitutional law was not possible; no party has had a constitutional majority or a constitutional coalition since 1997, when the law of the land was approved.
