Polish MEP Tarczynski: ‘We are trying to keep Europe, keep Poland, great and Christian’

In an interview on DW’s political talk show Conflict Zone, Dominik Tarczynski, Polish MEP of the right-wing Law and Justice Party (PiS) told host Tim Sebastian: “Donald Tusk is asking to postpone elections because their candidate – ex-candidate had five percent support when our president and our candidate at the moment is having 63 [percent].” He referred to them as “political cowards” trying to “escape from this catastrophe.”
Tarczynski addressed the cancellation of the elections acknowledging that they were “desperate to win” but not at any cost: “No one was ready for this kind of pandemic. I can’t really remember from history that this kind of pandemic, as this Chinese virus took place (…) that’s why our term was changed and that the elections probably will take place in beginning of July.”

On the warning by the Catholic Church to the PiS party about possible violations of the constitutional order and the need to preserve the principles of free and fair elections: “We are a sovereign government. We are Catholics. We hear all the voices and we listen to the people also to the bishops. But it’s us, our prime minister and our president who are making decisions.”

Citing himself as the “best example” of how the previous government treated people from the public media, the politician denied allegations that the PiS government was using state media as own ‘PR agency’.

On the bill signed by the President Andrzej Duda in January that gave more than five hundred million dollars to media that have been giving him supportive coverage during his re-election campaign: “It’s not about the president. It’s not about one political party. It’s about our mission. I know what the mission is in the public media. How many public state televisions is in Germany? We’ve got only one.” He added that this was not unusual stating: “Public money is part of the budget of the government and the public media are financed by the budget since day one, since 1990 or even before that.”

The MEP dismissed a report by Reporters without Borders that referred to public media in Poland as ‘government propaganda mouthpieces’, stating: “It’s all fake news (…) All these international organizations which are attacking Poland, Hungary, United States, I mean, Mr. Trump, are using their position for their political goals (…) It’s just not true.”

He defended the so-called muzzle law that the European Commission found to undermine the judicial independence of Polish judges: “We are having drunk driving judges. We are having judges from the marshal law times. And we have many, many of those which you don’t have from the communist times because most of the countries did not suffer as we did. So we have to clean it up to be straight.” He termed this as “double standards.”

He asserted the trust of Polish citizens on the PiS government, stating: “I can bet that President Duda will be re-elected.”

On discrimination against the LGBT community: “Everyone is equal in Poland. Everyone is free. This is democratic country. It’s about pushing, promoting and using money for the organizations with their flags of the rainbow. They are making money on it. They want to get into the schools and the children. It’s not about rights.”

Asked about the idea by the PiS party to withdraw from the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women in 2016: “It has nothing to do about women (…) It’s about the illegal migration and Sharia law (…) we were debating Sharia law in Europe when no one is discussing European values in Saudi Arabia or any other Sharia law states. So we are trying to keep Europe, keep Poland, great and Christian.”

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

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