The European parliamentary group of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz will defend the constitutions of European Union member states, MEP László Trócsányi said on Wednesday, expressing his party’s concern over “political attacks” against Poland concerning its recent court ruling saying that certain EU laws were incompatible with the country’s constitution.
Trócsányi said in a statement that Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal was not questioning the supremacy of EU law in matters in which the bloc has power, but simply declared that in all other matters the national constitution was the supreme law of the country. He emphasised that national constitutions based on the sovereignty, democratic legitimacy and constitutional order of member states served to limit the EU’s competences. “It was this that the Polish Constitutional Tribunal’s decision on the relationship between national and EU law defended,” Trócsányi said.
The MEP said the Polish court’s decision was the latest in a series of constitutional court rulings resulting from EU institutions’ disregard for the principle of the conferral of competences enshrined in the bloc’s founding treaties. The EU, he said, wanted to take powers away from member states which EU institutions had not been empowered to exercise jointly. “The European Union and European law exist and are applicable because national constitutions make this possible,” Trócsányi said. “EU institutions are required to respect the sovereignty and constitutional identity of member states even when exercising their powers.”
Trócsányi said it was also concerning that the EU was “applying double standards” to the central European member states and was “far more lenient” when dealing with the western European countries. “We emphasise that European integration only works if the member states are sovereign and equal states,” he said. “We consider justice, including judicial independence, an important shared value, but member states cannot be denied the right to enact judicial reforms in the interest of an effective judiciary.”
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