Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland's ruling party leader, has criticised proposed changes to EU treaties being tabled in the European Parliament, calling them a threat to Poland's independence and sovereignty.
Łukasz Gągulski/PAP

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland’s ruling party leader, has criticised proposed changes to EU treaties being tabled in the European Parliament, calling them a threat to Poland’s independence and sovereignty.

“If this treaty is approved, if it comes into effect, Poland will no longer continue as an independent and sovereign state,” Kaczynski, the Law and Justice (PiS) leader, said in Krakow, southern Poland, on Saturday evening.

“It will no longer be a state,” he said, referring to the planned changes to the EU Treaties which could deprive national counties of some of its competences.

Kaczynski also said that the obligatory adoption of the single currency in Poland would result in the worsening of living standards in the country, “just like it has happened in Slovakia.”

According to Kaczynski, Slovakia had once preceded Poland, but later it started “to move back in the process of economically catching up with the EU.”

“Today, it clearly is behind Poland and much below the EU average. These are the results of the euro adoption. And this is what is to be imposed on Poland,” the PiS leader said.

Slovakia adopted the euro on 1 January 2009.

“This… means losses for everybody. The Polish people must be aware of this situation,” Kaczynski said, adding that France and Germany were the two countries which had been mainly interested in the project.

Kaczynski also said that Poland had already narrowed the gap with Western Europe and added that “this is not the process which is being appreciated in Berlin.”

“And, undoubtedly, it will be stopped,” he said, adding that the changes to the EU Treaties would end in France’s and Germany’s domination in the EU.

In October, the European Parliament voted in favour of launching a Convention to amend the EU Treaties which would include elimination, in the EU Council, of the voting rule of unanimity in 65 policy areas. The proposed changes also envisage the transfer of some national competences to the EU Council, including external security, protection of citizens, defence, border protection and foreign affairs.

According to Kaczynski, such regulations would mean that “everything what is going on at Poland’s border with Belarus, would be taken over by the EU. “And in our part of Europe, in practice, by Germany.”

Poland has experienced heightened migratory pressure at its border with Belarus since 2021, which it has blamed on a deliberate tactic by Minsk.