Polish President Karol Nawrocki has presented his vision for the European Union (EU), proposing that the post of European Council President be abolished and the voting system in the EU Council, where member state governments are represented, be adjusted, the Polish Press Agency (PAP) reported, quoted by BTA.
Nawrocki, considered a Eurosceptic nationalist, delivered a lecture at Charles University in Prague on the future of the EU and attempts at its centralization, as part of his official visit to the Czech Republic today.
He called for a rejection of such initiatives, as he believes that centralizing the bloc would deprive all countries, except the two largest (Germany and France - ed.), of sovereignty and would weaken their democracies, as well as their voice at the level of EU.
States must retain their individual rights to decide the future of European integration, urged Nawrocki.
The Polish president proposed that there should no longer be a permanent president of the European Council, advocating a return to a system in which the post is held by a democratically elected head of government of a member state, rather than by a bureaucrat dependent on the support of stronger EU states.
In 2007, under the Lisbon Treaty, EU member states agreed that the European Council would have a permanent president with a mandate of two and a half years, renewable once. Among those who have held the post is the current Polish Prime Minister, the pro-European centrist Donald Tusk (in the period 2014-2019).
Nawrocki also said that he sees a need to change the electoral system in the EU Council so that it gives greater weight to the votes of the smaller countries of the bloc, as well as to limit the powers of the European institutions, limiting them to certain areas such as economic development or demography.
The Polish president expressed his support for his country's membership in the EU. However, issues related to the constitution, the judiciary and security should be within the powers of the president and the government of Poland alone, he added at the same time.