Mateusz Morawiecki at Heidelberg University
Smacking others with the whip of "European values" without agreeing on their definition or understanding what changes must be made by particular countries, is precisely self-destructive for the European Union.
Once the symbol of Europe was the ancient agora. A place where every citizen could speak on equal terms. Today, all too often the European agora is replaced by the offices of Brussels institutions, where decisions are made behind closed doors.
This is a short path for the EU to become a bureaucratic autocracy.
Alongside the new geopolitical circumstances, the fate of the European Union is also now being determined. Will it be a democratic community or a bureaucratic machine and centralist structure?
Politics is always about choice. But this choice must be made at the ballot box, not in the privacy of bureaucrats' offices. Do we really want a pan-European cosmopolitan elite with immense power but without an electoral mandate?
I warn all those who want to create a superstate governed by a narrow elite. If we ignore cultural differences the outcome will be the weakening of Europe and a series of revolts, perhaps even a new Springtime of Nations like the one in 1848.
If the rulers of Europe, like the Metternich-type aristocrats of the time, prefer the power of elites and the top-down imposition of their values, they will ultimately meet resistance. It may come sooner or later, but it is inevitable.
Comments (3)
There should be no place in Europe for censorship or ideological indoctrination. We have already gone through this in the past, when the communist authorities told us what to think. This was also experienced by Germans in the times of Hitler, when the books of free-thinking authors were burned.
Here, too, it is worth highlighting that various bans, arbitrary decisions on what can and cannot be presented within the walls of universities as well as political correctness undermine the eternal mission of the academy - the search for truth.
The attempt in Europe today to eliminate this diversity, to create a new man, uprooted from his national identity, means undercutting the roots and sawing off the branch on which we sit.
We don't want a Europe that gives an ultimatum: either you voluntarily cure your nationality, or we will apply all kinds of political and economic pressure on you, to do so.
Poland experiences this discrimination also due to a complete lack of understanding of the reforms that a country emerging from post-communism needed to make. Due to the involvement of European institutions in internal disputes of a member state under the slogan of "defending the rule of law".
It fights against oligarchy, against the domination of closed professional corporations, against poverty and against corruption. It safeguards against these pathologies.