Poland’s Civic Platform, currently in opposition, should either withdraw from the European People’s Party (EPP) or seek to replace EPP chief Manfred Weber, ruling Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jarosław Kaczyński said on Sunday.
Kaczyński commented on Weber’s latest statement on the upcoming elections in Poland for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. According to him, his party is the only force able to replace PiS in power in Poland and reintroduce the country in Europe. He added that the party should build “a firewall” against PiS.
“You hear those words, which are associated badly in Poland. It makes me surprised that he (Weber) talks such things, but only a bit surprised, as I know what Germans are like,” Kaczyński told his party’s supporters at the Sunday’s rally in Spała, in central Poland, as quoted by state Polish Radio.
He pointed out that the Polish opposition parties that belong to the EPP, the centre-liberal Civic Platform (PO) and centrist Polish People’s Party (PSL), did not express support for Weber’s statement, “quite the contrary, they attempt to cut themselves from it.”
Still, according to Kaczyński, “to remain reliable”, PO should have decided to withdraw from the EPP immediately after Weber’s interview had been published, or at least it should have demanded a change in the EPP’s leadership.
In his statement on the PO’s ability to replace PiS, Weber referred to PO being the biggest opposition party and the only party with real chances to win over PiS in upcoming elections in either October or early November.
Although PiS remains likely to secure a third consecutive term in power, its advantage over the PO-led Civic Coalition shrank to five percentage points, according to the newest poll by the Ipsos Institute for rightist Do Rzeczy magazine.
PiS politicians and the media are supportive of the government did not like that PO leader and co-founder, former European Council President Donald Tusk, left Weber’s statement with no comment.
PiS spokesman Radosław Fogiel accused the EPP of attempting to influence the Polish elections’ results, while PiS MEP Ryszard Czarnecki said Weber’s words bring to mind the German occupation of Poland during World War Two.
Earlier this year, another PiS MEP and Vice-President of the European Conservatives and Reformists ECR), Zdzisław Krasnodębski, told EURACTIV.pl he did not rule out a potential cooperation between the ECR and EPP.
He said that PO and PSL would most likely oppose cooperating with PiS at the EU level, blocking any collaboration between the two groups.
(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | EURACTIV.pl)
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