Polish freedom icon Lech Walesa said Wednesday that Poland was pushing the European Union away, echoing comments made this month by French and German leaders against Warsaw's rightwing government.
The 73-year-old former president and Nobel Peace laureate spoke days after French President Emmanuel Macron said Poland was going "against European interests" and German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Poland a "serious issue".
"Every country should say what France and Germany is saying today... We're increasingly throwing the (European) Union out of Poland. Not the Union us," Walesa told the Polsat News channel.
"The Union was organised under different circumstances and so it's not entirely well organised. But whoever belongs to whatever organisation, even to the association of canary breeders, has to submit to the rules that apply."
"If we want to belong to the Union, we have to behave like the Union," he added.
Walesa, who led the Solidarity movement that brought a peaceful end to communism in Poland, is an ardent opponent of the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party now in power.
The PiS has come under heavy criticism at home and abroad since coming to power in 2015 after a slew of reforms that critics say erode democratic standards and the rule of law.
The European Union last month launched legal action against the government over a new law that it fears will limit judicial independence.
Walesa said it was hard for him to utter criticism against the government "because I don't like to say anything bad about Poland" but was forced to speak because of the risks the country was facing.
"In Poland, rules are being broken. In Poland, there is terrible governance. In Poland, there are lies and spite -- from the very top... I don't like it and many Poles don't like it and many organisations that we belong to also don't like it. And that's the right reaction," Walesa said.
Under the current government, allegations that Walesa collaborated with the communist secret police in the early 1970s have once again surfaced at the hands of the state-run Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), which prosecutes crimes from the Nazi and communist eras.
Walesa has denied the accusations, and a special vetting court ruled in 2000 that there was no basis to suspicions that Walesa had been a paid regime agent.
Polish freedom icon Lech Walesa said Wednesday that Poland was pushing the European Union away, echoing comments made this month by French and German leaders against Warsaw’s rightwing government.
The 73-year-old former president and Nobel Peace laureate spoke days after French President Emmanuel Macron said Poland was going “against European interests” and German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Poland a “serious issue”.
“Every country should say what France and Germany is saying today… We’re increasingly throwing the (European) Union out of Poland. Not the Union us,” Walesa told the Polsat News channel.
“The Union was organised under different circumstances and so it’s not entirely well organised. But whoever belongs to whatever organisation, even to the association of canary breeders, has to submit to the rules that apply.”
“If we want to belong to the Union, we have to behave like the Union,” he added.
Walesa, who led the Solidarity movement that brought a peaceful end to communism in Poland, is an ardent opponent of the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party now in power.
The PiS has come under heavy criticism at home and abroad since coming to power in 2015 after a slew of reforms that critics say erode democratic standards and the rule of law.
The European Union last month launched legal action against the government over a new law that it fears will limit judicial independence.
Walesa said it was hard for him to utter criticism against the government “because I don’t like to say anything bad about Poland” but was forced to speak because of the risks the country was facing.
“In Poland, rules are being broken. In Poland, there is terrible governance. In Poland, there are lies and spite — from the very top… I don’t like it and many Poles don’t like it and many organisations that we belong to also don’t like it. And that’s the right reaction,” Walesa said.
Under the current government, allegations that Walesa collaborated with the communist secret police in the early 1970s have once again surfaced at the hands of the state-run Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), which prosecutes crimes from the Nazi and communist eras.
Walesa has denied the accusations, and a special vetting court ruled in 2000 that there was no basis to suspicions that Walesa had been a paid regime agent.
