Jacek SARYUSZ-WOLSKI (ECR, PL), Ryszard LEGUTKO (ECR, PL), and Nicola PROCACCINI (ECR,IT) co-chairmen on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties, hold a press conference in Strasbourg. This transcription is a result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

Strasbourg

plenary session

LEGUTKO, Ryszard Antoni (ECR, PL)

press conference

SARYUSZ-WOLSKI, Jacek (ECR, PL)

PROCACCINI, Nicola (ECR, IT)

Press conference by Jacek SARYUSZ-WOLSKI (ECR, PL), Ryszard LEGUTKO (ECR, PL), and Nicola PROCACCINI (ECR,IT) co-chairmen on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/73405157/1700570582392_I249664Chapters%5BSD-EN%5D.srt

SOUNBITE (English), Jacek SARYUSZ-WOLSKI (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. 'Either you heard what I said to the plenary or you can get it on paper from my office. So I do not intend to repeat what they said. It can be resumed in one sentence. We are against hijacking Europe by this anti-democratic, anti-federal project, to turn you, as we know, into a superstate. The purpose of this report, as it was said, is the Article 48 procedure, which will be triggered with this report, which we expect to be voted to tomorrow with us against for the reasons, which you hear about now.

SOUNBITE (English), Jacek SARYUSZ-WOLSKI (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. 'There are 267 changes in the Treaties proposed. I was one of the six co-rapporteurs, and I left in the final stage when the principle announced that the beginning of consensus among the six co-rapporteurs was violated outright. No proposals which ECR presented were taken on board. That's why we left the group in July, in protest. Those changes are revolutionary and mark a Copernican revolution in terms of political system of the Union.

SOUNBITE (English), Jacek SARYUSZ-WOLSKI (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. 'It is also irreversible in terms that once new Treaties come into force, it is practically impossible to change, and it leads to turning sovereign Member States into into vassals or into regions and creating a centralised hegemonic superstate run by mainstream oligarchy and escaping democratic control because it removes the decision-making process from the level where democracy works, which is nation states, to the democracy where this huge democratic deficit and no-European demos, which is European level.

SOUNBITE (English), Jacek SARYUSZ-WOLSKI (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. 'The proposal is to reshuffle the whole institutional system, to transfer massively competences, nine of them to be exclusive or so-called "shared". But please do notice that shared competences are in fact EU competences, because the Article 2 says that EU has priority in exercising those competences, it can exercise them in 100% and only what is left maybe if you wish si, is exercised by Member States. So shared competences are de facto EU competences as much as exclusive ones.

SOUNBITE (English), Jacek SARYUSZ-WOLSKI (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. 'So nine competences go to the EU level and very few areas are left for the Member States, which, as I say, lose the attributes of this statehood and become kind of regions, kind of regions. And these areas are environment, climate, public health, including reproductive health rights, which is a synonym to abortion, cross-border transportation, infrastructure, external border policy, foreign affairs, external security, defence, civil protection, industry, education.

SOUNBITE (English), Jacek SARYUSZ-WOLSKI (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. Such a massive transfer means that it is no longer a quantitative change of the nature and of the political system of the union. It is a qualitative change. It it will be the EU will be sovereign, who will decide how much sovereignty is left, if any, to the Member States.

SOUNBITE (English), Jacek SARYUSZ-WOLSKI (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. Besides moving those cardinal competences to the EU level, the report proposes a quasi total elimination of the veto right, which means unanimity. And unanimity in voting of the EU constitutes the bastion of sovereignty of the Member States. These are 63 areas where Member States say no, it is our sovereignty, we never decided to transfer it to the EU level, so please respect it and if you don't, we have the veto right.

'SOUNBITE (English), Jacek SARYUSZ-WOLSKI (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. 'In all those 63 cases, veto right is eliminated. It remains only in three cases, and you may recall that the main argument in favour of this huge Copernican change is to prepare for enlargement. Scientific research shows that, and the scientific literature on that is unanimous, that all the previous enlargements led to acceleration and facilitation of decision-making process, which is contrary to this mystification, which is being propagated as the reason for the change.

'SOUNBITE (English), Jacek SARYUSZ-WOLSKI (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. 'Second is a logic argument. When you have more members, every member's weight is relatively small and thus less able to do harm to the decision-making process. And third argument is that, and it is also true we found in the scientific literature that, in that case, enlargement would necessitate rather decentralisation than centralisation as the philosophy of devolution, once upon implemented both in Great Britain but also in France shows.

'SOUNBITE (English), Jacek SARYUSZ-WOLSKI (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. So it is a fake argumentation behind, and the proof is that among those three vetoes left there are two unimportant. One is about the Council in simplified procedure, changing the Third of the Treaty of Functioning of the Union in a simplified way, which is obvious. Second is linguistic question. With all due respect to the linguistic sensibilities, it is not major. But saying that we need it for enlargement, the veto remains on taking new members. These are Himalayas of hypocrisy and show how fake the whole argumentation is.

'SOUNBITE (English), Jacek SARYUSZ-WOLSKI (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. 'So replacing unanimity in nearly everywhere and liquidating veto right and passing to qualified majority, by the way, changing the present double majority thresholds from 55 to and 65% of population states and population to 50 - which 50, means that big boys, big countries, would be able to run alone. The EU, for example, for Germany, France, Italy and Spain, 57% of population, co-optation of ten small countries is an easy-peasy peanut. They could run against the EU, against the will of remaining 23 Member States. That's where the reform or the change leads.

'SOUNBITE (English), Jacek SARYUSZ-WOLSKI (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. Euro to become obligatory, which means that primary criteria are not those seen in and tried in massive convergence criteria, which means healthy, rational economic thinking, but the political imperative, political order, take euro whatever is to be put into place. Also changes of institutional nature, the reforming and renaming the Commission for those who lived under communism. It sounds dangerous because the Commission would become executiva, and this was the name of Communist Party shall use from down to the top, and commissioners would have become secretaries, which was the nomenklatura of Communist Party in the Soviet bloc.

'SOUNBITE (English), Jacek SARYUSZ-WOLSKI (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. So it should awake at least Central East European flank of the EU. It also reverses the roles of Council and Parliament. Council becomes less important, and Parliament becomes more. Only 15 Member States would have Commissioners, which means they would be full members and half members, first and second category of members.

'SOUNBITE (English), Jacek SARYUSZ-WOLSKI (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. Parliament would have a legislative initiative. They did not agree on my proposal to have a red card procedure where half, 50% of national parliaments could stop legislation in the EU. They rejected my green card proposal where 30% of national parliaments could propose legislation in defence of the principle of subsidiarity. I propose to create within the ECJ Court of Justice a chamber of subsidiarity composed of the Presidents of National Constitutional Courts, also rejected. So empty words about democracy, participation, citizens. But everything goes in the opposite direction.

'SOUNBITE (English), Jacek SARYUSZ-WOLSKI (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. Another change facilitating to grill and sanction Member States would be to to punish and to sanction Member States under Article 7. Grilling procedure, no longer unanimity in the second phase, but the majority procedure, and not only depriving Member State of right of veto, of right of votes, of speak. The Council, but also this time, lege artis, depriving them of billions of billions of euros, which would put them financially on their knees, which is, by the way, now being done. The blackmail of that kind is being done against the conservative government of Italy of Meloni.

'SOUNBITE (English), Jacek SARYUSZ-WOLSKI (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. 'So this report encapsulates this agenda of euro-centralist forces, which isn't a change, not at all democratic, not at all federalist. It is extremely harmful. Harmful. It would not be any longer union. So bye-bye to the European Union, as we know. Bye-bye to the European Union of Schuman, Christian-inspired. Welcome to the Communists, of entering the report inspired superstate in place of the Union of today. For that reason, we say God save the Union. Let's protect the EU Treaties as they are. Let's protect Europe, protect EU against self-destruction. Thank you.

'SOUNBITE (English), Ryszard LEGUTKO (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. 'Thank you. A couple of points. In addition to what Mr. SARYUSZ-WOLSKI said. Point number one, the argument you could hear today was that you want to have more power because having less power, we didn't perform quite well. Well, it should be the other way round. That is, we performed excellent. That's why we want more power and that we have heard all along since the very beginning. The performance is miserable, so we want more power in our hands. That would be enough to say no to giving more power to a European institution. I think less power to European institutions with the rational decision.

'SOUNBITE (English), Ryszard LEGUTKO (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. Point number two, veto. Well, that is inequality of nations in the EU. They are big guys, strong, having all sorts of economic, military, political potential. And there are countries, they are small, they are they do not do quite well economically. And the veto, the right to veto was the only instrument, the only weapon the weaker countries had against the big bullets. Once you get rid of the veto, we are in the hands of the big guys and that comes down to it.

'SOUNBITE (English), Ryszard LEGUTKO (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. either we want to preserve some kind of equality, among the member states and then you have to retain the veto power, or you want to create a sort of oligarchy with the big guys at the top and then that is precisely being suggested.So

'SOUNBITE (English), Ryszard LEGUTKO (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. you Now, as could hear the third point, as you probably heard. So we all imagine the plan is to do without referenda, right, to make the treaty change, to give enormous power to European institutions and enormous power to the big guys behind those institutions without consulting the societies, without consulting the voters.

'SOUNBITE (English), Ryszard LEGUTKO (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. So we probably will have backdoor negotiations, lack of any kind of transparency, no possibility of making any changes in the Treaties without consulting the voters. I know that's the hardest part to swallow by the the mainstream people. Well, Mr. Verhofstadt and his colleagues, because they know very when they come up with these ideas and will put it to vote by the people, they will lose. We have to keep the democratic standards.

'SOUNBITE (English), Ryszard LEGUTKO (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. And the final point is, of course, a very serious threat of ideological disputes. We had we those of you who were present to the debate, that it is still, I think, going on. You heard these remarks about the reproductive rights and whatever things like these up to now, theoretically at least, these were the matters to be decided in individual states, in the member states.

'SOUNBITE (English), Ryszard LEGUTKO (ECR, PL), Co-chairman on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. Now, the plan is to be a part of the EU ideology, which means that the EU will have the institutions to impose moral and philosophic issues on the people and will have the instruments to punish though those who have a different view. So I think the danger is a kind of creeping despotism.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Nicola PROCACCINI (ECR,IT), Co-chair on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. Yes. Good evening. First of all, let me thank our shadow rapporteur, Professor Legutko and you, Michael. So let me start from a single paradox. You know, our name is the European Conservatives and Reformists because we are conservative about our values and we are even reformists, about the European Union. This is why we were founded. Our group was founded. And now the paradox is that we are the ones who want to keep the original idea of European Union still alive.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Nicola PROCACCINI (ECR,IT), Co-chair on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. We are the ones that want to maintain the treaties like are now, it's a strange paradox, but in facing this danger, the danger of a superstate, a European superstate that nobody, nobody choosed not at the beginning of the European process, not recently. No one decided to to have a super state that reduces the nation, the state and the member states as a municipality without  sovereignty.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Nicola PROCACCINI (ECR,IT), Co-chair on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. 'So this is why for our group, this battle is the mother of the battles and the debate of today and the vote of tomorrow is only the first half of the match. The second half will be the European elections of June, because there every European citizen has to decide to choose if he wants a a federalism in the European Union, or if they want a co-federalism like we want to, as was the the original idea of Europe.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Nicola PROCACCINI (ECR,IT), Co-chair on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. This is really important for us. Do you know? Our our mantra is that the European Union must is doing less, doing better. Maybe you you have you have read somewhere. This is exactly what we still say. We we think that take competences, transfer competences from the national States to the European Union is a a threat to democracy, is a threat to the of serenity, is a threat to freedom.  This is something that we will face now in the next European elections and forever.

'SOUNDBITE (English), Nicola PROCACCINI (ECR,IT), Co-chair on Proposals of the European Parliament for the Amendment of the Treaties. This is why we are here. We are here to to restore the original idea of European Union. And that idea is not the one discussed in the plenary even now. This is socialism is the international socialism. Completely another thing, and with the original idea of European Union. Thanks a lot.