Polen bang dat nieuwe fiscale regelingen leiden tot een overmacht voor Duitsland (en)
BRUSSELS - Opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski has said Polish leaders at last week's EU summit sold the country's sovereignty to Germany for the sake of "private interests."
Kaczynski made the accusations at a rally in Warsaw on Tuesday (13 December) that saw several thousand people turn out to mark the 30th anniversary of the imposition of martial law in Communist times.
"Herr Tusk and Sikorski: serve the Germans in Berlin, leave Poland to the Poles," one banner proclaimed. "Euro macht frei," another one said, in a reference to the motto above the entrance to the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz.
"This [the new treaty on joint economic governance ] is an attack on our sovereignty, our status, our dignity but also our interests. Only people who have gone mad, to put it mildly, would believe that others, those more powerful than us, will look after our interests," Kaczynski said.
He added that Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk agreed the deal for the sake of unspecified "interests of a purely personal nature, some purely private ambitions."
The Polish EU presidency has made pro-EU sentiment in Poland the main message of its six-month tenure, with Tusk and Sikorski on Tuesday night making fun of Kaczynski.
"From what I know, they want to burn Radoslaw Sikorski, hang [finance minister] Jan Vincent Rostowski and dismember Tusk, or the other way around," Tusk told Polish press agency Pap.
"The foreign policy doctrine of PiS [Kaczynki's rigt-wing party] is based on confronting Germany no matter what the situation is. Even when the Germans propose reforms the success of which is in our interest," Sikorski told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.
Polish society is still marked by pro-EU sentiment - the latest poll in November noted that 68 percent of Poles believe EU policies promote jobs and social welfare
The fact that 47 percent of Poles voted for Kaczynski in last year's presidential elections shows that his ideas have traction, however.
Pro-EU Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski is also taking the question of sovereignty seriously - the head of state said he will convene a cross-party round table and call a meeting of the national security council to examine the EU fiscal compact before the Polish parliament holds a vote.
Meanwhile, Sikorski in his Gazeta Wyborcza interview criticised British leader David Cameron for creating "a potential scar on European unity" by his decision to stay out of the new treaty.
He said Cameron has "fallen victim to the years-long anti-European propaganda" in the UK and mishandled the EU negotiations.
"The British proposal for an additional protocol came out 24 hours before the summit. Our experience of European politics shows that this is much too late," he said.
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