A former Polish Prime Minister who was unhappy about the UK leaving the EU has admitted that he now understands why the British voted for Brexit after the latest Brussels power grab describing it as “a turning point in history”.
Mateusz Morawiecki narrowly lost the election late last year to Donald Tusk’s pro-EU coalition after Ursula von der Leyen’s European Commission intervened to help ensure his Law and Justice Party (PiS) was defeated.
In an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk, Mr Morawiecki was asked after his recent experience with the “dangerous” EU meddling from Brussels if he now understood why Britain voted for Brexit.
He said: “Well I probably differ from the majority of Brits who were in favour of leaving the European Union, because I believe that the European Union has its values, its merits.
“But I think the tendency, the trend now is very dangerous. And I can better understand why the United Kingdom took such a decision.”
Von der Leyen’s Commission withheld billions of euros from Poland and Hungary because both countries refused to bow to its demands to control domestic laws in their countries.
The former Prime Minister, whose PiS party is still the largest in the Polish Parliament, said that this “definitely” was part of an attempt to influence the controversial election last year.
Since then Mr Tusk, who caused mayhem during the Brexit negotiations as President of the European Council, has imposed authoritarian control on Poland effectively shutting down part of the free media and seeing two PiS opposition MPs arrested who had been responsible for fighting corruption in the previous government.
The EU has stood by silently as Mr Tusk brought back state control which Mr Morawiecki, who was a freedom fighter in the 1980s, said had not been seen since the Communist era.
But even more concerning to Mr Morawiecki is that Mr Tusk has signed away Poland’s sovereignty by agreeing to 67 new powers for von der Leyen’s European Commission.
He warned that the EU is on course to “implode” through unsustainable centralisation.
Mr Morawiecki accused Mr Tusk of “governing for Brussels and Berlin, not Warsaw”.
He told Express.co.uk: “When it comes to different EU policies, definitely there was an interference in our domestic matters.
“On the government’s agenda, during my time, we had different suggestions to the European Union, which is trying to capture more and more competencies.
“I think it’s going in the wrong direction, which is going to lead to the implosion of the European Union eventually. I definitely believe that the European Union is a very valuable organisation from the point of view of the free market area, internal market economy cooperation, for different freedoms, freedom of movement of capital, people, goods in particular and services.
“But the more competencies are being acquired and captured by the European Commission, the less a sovereign state has to say, and if you observe.”
He went on: “If you read the recent plans of the European Parliament, European Commission, about the reform of the treaty, I find it very, very dangerous for the stability of the European Union.
“Because first it’s depriving sovereign states of their basic rights in the area of security, foreign policy, tax policy, which is the very, you know, spine a backbone of any sovereign state, and many, many other areas.”
He claimed that the new 67 centralisations are “not only against the subsidiarity rule, but also going to be completely centralist and ineffective.”
He added: “This is what worries me a lot but the Tusk government has confirmed agreement with those changes.”
