Politicians who want the EU to be more independent are actually pushing it closer to China, he insisted
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has lashed out at the idea of EU strategic autonomy, claiming that proponents want the economic bloc to become more dependent on China. He further urged “democracies” against “trading with tyrants”.
“European autonomy sounds fancy, doesn’t it, but it means shifting the center of European gravity towards China and severing ties with the US,” the Polish official said on Thursday in remarks to the Atlantic Council, a pro-NATO think-tank.
Morawiecki’s comments come after French president Emmanuel Macron called for a more strategically independent EU foreign policy, following a visit to China. He argued that the EU should not be a “vassal” of Washington, and not become “caught up in crises that are not ours.”
Morawiecki, a staunch promoter of the EU’s alignment with the US, blasted Western European politicians supporting Macron’s views.
“Shortsightedly they look to China to be able to sell more European products there at huge geopolitical cost, making us more dependent on China, and not less,” he stated. “Hence, I don’t quite understand the concept of ‘strategic autonomy’, if it means de facto shooting into our own knee.”
The Polish prime minister said that the Western European economy has long been based on five pillars, including cheap Russian energy, affordable capital, cheap labor, “free” defense via NATO and access to the Chinese market.
“Now we see all those pillars either in jeopardy or non-existent at all. Now their modus vivendi has collapsed,” he noted.
Morawiecki urged restricting international trade in the name of geostrategic and ideological interests. Outsourcing strategic industries to certain nations, he claimed, “means giving more kinds of weapons to those who may use them against the free world.”
Trading with tyrants has hidden costs. Now we know that true development is guaranteed only with predictable partners, who share our common values.
Morawiecki criticized some Western European politicians who do not want to support Ukraine against Russia as much as they should, and instead want a “quick ceasefire.” Ukraine’s fall may bring an end to the golden age of the West, he warned, while Ukraine’s victory “is a guarantee of not only the reconstruction, but of strengthening of our economic power.”
He praised his own country as an example of a well-regulated economy and a nation that serves as “an indispensable link in Washington’s trans-Atlantic policy.”
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