During the European Parliament’s commemoration of its 70th anniversary of existence, the chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformers group, Professor Ryszard Legutko took the floor to expose the worrying shortcomings of European democracy.

The Bitter Truth

He began his scathing criticism by announcing that what the Parliament was about to hear were ‘two minutes of truth, of bitter truth’. He continued by saying that the bitter truth is that the EP has done a lot of damage in Europe. He stated that the EP is sending the false message that it represents the European democracies. ‘There isn’t and there won’t be any European demos,’ he declared. He said that the Parliament has infected Europe with ‘shameless partisanship’ and the infection became too contagious. So much so that it spread to other institutions like the European Commission.

To the consternation of the left and liberal members of the chamber, but accompanied by the clapping of like-minded representatives, he added that the European Parliament has abandoned its basic function of representing people. Instead, it turned into a ‘machine to implement the so-called European project, alienating millions of voters.’ He continued by emphasizing that the EP has become a political vehicle of the left to impose their monopoly of thought, with their intolerance towards any dissenting views. ‘No matter how many times you repeat the word ‘diversity’, diversity is becoming an extinct species in the European Union and particularly in this chamber,’ Legutko said, apparently unfazed by the booing of some of the MEPs.

In the ECR chairman’s opinion, because it rejects accountability, the fundamental tenet of parliamentarism, the European Parliament is a quasi-parliament. ‘Let me remind you that the deputy was chosen by the electorate and is therefore responsible to them,’ he stressed, noting that the European Union is an exception. The notion that, say, Spanish, German, French, etc. legislators, responsible to their own national electorates, can prescribe something to, say, Hungarian society or any other society to which they cannot be held accountable, ‘is preposterous’.

Summing up his message, the Polish MEP declared said: ‘Call it what you will, but democracy it is not.’ In his view, the European Parliament works for a project that disregards reality and the law, shuns accountability, ignores millions of people, and serves the interests of one political orientation, and what he said was ‘only the top of the iceberg.’

Sadly, it is doubtful that the professor’s Cassandraic words will be heeded by the European progressive elites.