EU MONITOR: European Sovereignty in Central Europe Ahead of the Conference on the Future of Europe

In Poland the discussion is one-sided. The EU is a union of states and only states can be sovereign. Most constitutional lawyers argue sovereignty belongs purely to the states and no other subject of international relations can claim sovereignty. The debate can be best summed up by a popular public figure and a scholar, professor Marek Cichocki, who wrote in his commentary to the President Macron idea in 2018: “For many, maybe apart from a few old-fashioned federalists who have survived to our times, the combination of Europe and sovereignty causes a great embarrassment. Especially in the case of the EU, the idea of a sovereign Europe is absurd” . Jacek Czaputowicz, Poland’s foreign affairs minister and a scholar, authored a book on sovereignty of the state . As a minister, he has commented the French initiative: “Sovereignty is the ability of the state to decide its fate” and contemporary Poland is fully sovereign. On the one hand, to the allegations that the EU membership corrupts the national sovereignty the minister replied: “If we definesovereignty as the state’s ability to act in order to fulfil its national interest, then membership in the EU or NATO does not have to mean a limitation of sovereignty; it is about execution of sovereignty”. On the other hand, referring to the statement by president Macron about “a sovereign Europe”, minister Czaputowicz concluded “since sovereignty is the supreme authority that has no other authority over itself, then the effect of a sovereignty of Europe would be, for example, no sovereignty of France” .