The E.U. is not a common market. It is a liberal imperialist project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
October 25, 2021\u00a0 THE AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE<\/p>\n\n\n\n
by BRADLEY DEVLIN<\/strong><\/a> —<\/p>\n\n\n\n The European Union and the globalists who rule the European core revealed their hand last Thursday when some of the bloc\u2019s leaders shamed Poland for purportedly violating the E.U.\u2019s values and laws, once again proving that the E.U. is not a common market, but a liberal imperialist project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether it\u2019s logging in the Bia\u0142owie\u017ca Forest, the refusal to take in refugees, press freedoms, or judiciary reform, the issues the E.U. and some of its member states have with Poland are multifaceted. Yet, at the root of all of their critiques of Poland is the idea that Poland\u2019s sovereignty is second to that of the E.U. Warsaw ultimately answers to Brussels\u2014and on occasion Luxembourg or Strasbourg\u2014rather than the Polish people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is something Eurosceptics have recognized for quite a long time, even before Nigel Farage spearheaded the ultimately successful Brexit effort in the U.K., which still has internationalists biting their nails in fear of which domino might fall next\u2014fears that haven\u2019t yet come to fruition. Today, the Eurosceptics\u2019 intuitions are being all but explicitly confirmed by those still committed to the European project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two days before this year\u2019s E.U. summit began in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki squared off in speeches to the European Parliament, offering a sneak peek of the impending discussions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In her speech<\/a>, von der Leyen took issue with a recent ruling by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal that stated the national constitution is paramount, over E.U. treaties, calling it \u201ca direct challenge to the unity of the European legal order.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe people of Poland wanted democracy,\u201d von der Leyen said, describing the Polish people\u2019s ascent from the bondage of communism. \u201cThey wanted the freedom to choose their government, they wanted free speech and free media, they wanted an end to corruption and they wanted independent courts to protect their rights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is what Europe is about and that is what Europe stands for,\u201d the European commissioner went on to say. \u201cThe recent ruling of the Polish Constitutional Court puts much of it into question.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe cannot and will not allow our common values to be put at risk,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a speech of his own to the European Parliament, Morawiecki said<\/a>, \u201cSome European institutions assume the right to decide on matters that have not been assigned to them. \u2026 We will not act under the pressure of blackmail, we are ready for dialogue, we do not agree to the ever-expanding competences (of E.U. institutions), but we will of course talk about how to resolve the current disputes in dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leaders from other E.U. member states backed von der Leyen and the commission\u2019s assessment of the situation in Poland at the summit<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you want to have the advantages of being in a club\u2026 then you need to respect the rules,\u201d Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said. \u201cYou can\u2019t be a member of a club and say, \u2018the rules don\u2019t apply to me\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte remarked, \u201cThe independence of the Polish judiciary is the key issue we have to discuss. It is very difficult to see how a big new fund of money could be made available to Poland when this is not settled.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The European Commission has already prevented Poland from accessing 57 billion euros ($66 billion) in Covid-19 economic relief funds, and asked the European Court of Justice to consider imposing daily fines on Poland until the Polish Supreme Court is reformed and laws that violate the bloc\u2019s \u201ccommon values\u201d are changed. While Poland rightfully seems to care more about its sovereignty than receiving E.U. development dollars, it is not a net contributor to the E.U. like the pre-Brexit U.K., which gives Brussels more leverage than Warsaw would like. In 2018<\/a>, the E.U. spent 16.350 billion euros in Poland, nearly 3.5 percent of the entire Polish economy, while Poland contributed just under 4 billion euros.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Poland was not without its defenders at the summit, however. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the leader of another country that the E.U. has taken great issue with over the past few years, and who has garnered attention in conservative intellectual circles and American media, said, \u201cthe fact is very clear: the primacy of E.U. law is not in the treaty at all, so the E.U. has primacy where it has competencies\u2026 what\u2019s going on here is regularly that European institutions circumvent the rights of the national parliament and government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The most recent condemnation of Poland from von der Leyen et al. further reveals the European project to be what nationalists and Eurosceptics of various stripes have always understood it to be: an imperializing force for liberalism. To this day, students are taught that the European Union is first and foremost a common market, devoted to the free transfer of people, goods, services, and capital. Only later, this story goes, when the bloc was faced with the choice of widening or deepening the level of European integration (which it wound up opting for both), did more commitments to \u201ccommon values\u201d beyond that of neoliberal economics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n