Is the European Union headed in the right direction?
Nowadays, the European Union is hijacked by a technocratic elite of European federalists hiding behind empty slogans. This group of federalists want to almost completely abolish the member states’ right of veto and give Brussels more powers in key competences such as foreign and security policy, taxation or internal security, among many others. This would leave the nations without any instruments for the defense of their legitimate interests.
The European project was born based on the will of the European sovereign nations to cooperate in order to face common national and international challenges. But the politicians in Brussels have for many years attributed to themselves the power to decide what is best for the European citizens. All this is happening under the false pretext of preparing for enlargement.
How a group of federalists is carrying out a back-door change of the Treaties under the so-called Conference on the Future of Europe is outrageous.
This Conference is a radical reformist plan aiming to undermine national democracies and strengthen Brussels as a power center run by a technocratic elite, largely outside democratic control, difficult to hold accountable, and almost impossible to effectively vote out of office.
Brussels wants to create a European superstate, superseding the role of our member states and regions.
The VOX delegation, as part of the ECR group in the European Parliament, has denounced this outrageous anti-democratic attack against the European member states and their citizens. For us, the adoption of the treaty change plan by the majority in the European Parliament should be a wake-up call to all those who truly care about the future of the EU and democracy on our continent.
In the June European Parliament elections, we will have the chance to stop this madness and make a stronger and better Europe.
What is the top priority in the upcoming EP election?
In one word: sovereignty. In two: sovereignty and subsidiarity.
Immigration, I know, is the main concern of most European citizens. However, in spite of the more tangible nature of this problem, we—I mean conservative and patriotic politicians— must remind the people that national sovereignty is the precondition for effectively tackling the immigration crisis.
We know the entrenched Eurocratic elites will do nothing to solve the crisis. On the contrary, they are enabling it, as they think it serves their ultimate purposes. We know that the will to halt this flow of military age males invading our European countries lies at the national level—with national leaders, aligned with the people, who will assert their nation- states’ sovereign right to defend its borders.
This must be coupled, of course, with a devolution of many competences to which Brussels has, subtly and not so subtly, encroached itself. To achieve this, it is essential that the people elect a new European Parliament in which representatives of the conservative and patriotic movement sweeping Europe have a clear majority. Otherwise, Brussels will persist in its deleterious encroachment on our national competences, until the train wreck becomes inevitable.
Here, subsumed under the greater and noble crusade for national sovereignty, we include the fight against the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, which we should better label—as my colleague Jorge Buxadé has done—“Social Demolishment Goals.” This agenda of the elites, schemed in their ivory towers, aims to dictate how to consume, how to produce, how to live. It is especially vexatious toward our primary sector by imposing onerous and unrealistic constraints on our farmers, fishermen, and livestock breeders, pushing them to the edge of bankruptcy. This, I’m afraid, is the true, secret goal underlying this agenda, as European nations won’t be able to uphold their sovereignty if, lacking their own primary sector, they are forced to import these essentials from elsewhere.
European farmers won’t be vanquished so easily, however. Look at the ongoing, Europe-wide rebellion that the establishment is trying to silence. If, in the next European Parliament elections, these courageous farmers place their trust in us—conservative and sovereigntist candidates—they can be assured we won’t betray them.
Will the results of the European Parliament elections have a big influence on EU policymaking afterwards?
Yes, if—as I said—conservative and patriotic forces from all over Europe gain a significant number of seats, which is what polls are anticipating. For the first time in the history of the Parliament, we could have a right-wing majority, with a decisive numerical strength for the defenders of national sovereignty. This would break the noxious entente between the EPP and the ever-destructive forces of the Left which has had Europe languishing in its grip for far too many years.
These elections offer European nations an excellent opportunity to bury that Great Coalition of disastrous effects, send the Left and leftist agenda to the bin of irrelevance, discipline the fainthearted EPP, and explore new promising right- wing alliances within Parliament that will diminish the power of Eurocrats, increase that of European peoples and tackle the real concerns of citizens from all European nations.
What’s your view on the Spitzenkandidat process? How do you think the European Commission president should be chosen?
The Spitzenkandidat process, launched in 2014 and which aimed to create the illusion that Europeans were choosing the president of the European Commission, is on its deathbed.
The system was a rather desperate attempt by the two old European political groups (EPP/S&D) to maintain their system of alliances. However, it did not work in 2019, when Ursula von der Leyen, who had not even run in the elections,
was elected by a narrow margin of 9 votes. Votes that came, by the way, from Polish members of my group, whose Law and Justice (PiS) party then ruled Poland, and who got promises of respectful treatment from von der Leyen. Instead, they were betrayed with the opposite. They have been consistently harassed, betrayed, maltreated, and abused by von der Leyen during her mandate. In the end, both the Commission and Germany have contributed strongly to the 2023 ousting of the Law and Justice government— openly interfering with Polish politics to achieve that goal.
In 2024, the situation is even less favorable for supporters of this process, as in Germany the Scholz coalition (SPD, Alliance 90, the Greens, and the FDP) is faltering, and French president Emmanuel Macron maintains his position that the European Council should retain the freedom to appoint the Commission president. The new Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, who served as president of the European Council from 2014 to 2019, thinks the same.
With or without the Spitzenkandidat system, it is clear that European citizens did not directly choose the president of the European Commission. The lack of legitimacy and the overstepping of competences are evident and scandalous and citizens are getting sick of it, which explains the growing surge of conservative parties expected in the upcoming European elections.
It is not the role of the European Commission to engage in active politics; this role belongs to the European Council, which is not willing to relinquish its pre-eminence in choosing the Commission president. The argument made in 2014 that the Spitzenkandidat were promoted on the premise that the European Parliament had greater legitimacy because it was directly elected by European citizens created discomfort among the leaders of the member states, who were also directly elected in their respective countries.
We will have to see whether the European Parliament reaches an agreement after the June 2024 elections or if the European Council ends up intervening. In any case, if once again the proposals of the groups in the European Parliament are ignored, it would be a fatal blow to the Spitzenkandidat system.
Are there reasons for hope?
There are reasons for hope. Fifteen years ago we had no diagnosis. Today we do: the objective of the European Left is to dispossess the majority, and the method to achieve it is the concentration of power in Brussels. Having an accurate diagnosis, as I believe we do, is the first cause for optimism.
The second is that we have articulated an alternative proposal that defends national sovereignty, as a dike of containment against the impoverishment project we are facing.
And the third reason is that, in June, when we are called to vote, we will have the unbeatable opportunity to change the forces in the European Parliament, and tip the balance in favor of our sovereigntist, conservative, and free market project.
