“These are completely unjustified allegations, which make Poles fear that these are some undemocratic actions aimed at removing individual people, especially Donald Tusk, from Polish politics, PiS MP Kazimierz Smoliński told portal wPolityce.pl.
READ ALSO: Great emotions after the vote on the Russian influence committee. “Tusk is really scared. He knows what’s behind his ears”; “We’re not afraid of you”
wPolityce.pl: The Sejm voted to overrule the Senate’s veto of the bill on the appointment of a verification committee to investigate Russian influence. Are the fears of the opposition – including that this could lead to the removal of Donald Tusk from politics – justified?
Kazimierz Smolinski: Hysterical reaction, in no way justified. I could actually ask what they’re afraid of, after all, they can nominate their representatives to the committee and examine those threads they deem appropriate.
Moreover, they forget that Donald Tusk himself called for checking Russian influence in the elections. So why don’t they want to do it now?
If one looks at it realistically, even if there were some finalized procedures, the commission would soon conduct a number of proceedings against a particular person who was believed to be acting under Russian influence, the commission’s decision can be appealed to the court and no politician for this campaign or even the one in April or May next year will be unaffected by the committee’s actions. After all, it has to be done through two bodies, through the administrative court.
So these are completely unjustified accusations, which scares the Poles that these are some undemocratic actions aimed at removing individual people, especially Donald Tusk, from Polish politics. He finally eliminated himself from it by emigrating to Brussels, or perhaps more, as we said yesterday in the Sejm, to Berlin, for he clearly acts more in the interest of Berlin than of Warsaw.
How would you interpret Donald Tusk’s visit to the Sejm yesterday?
On the one hand you can say sarcastically that he refers to his old habits and wanted to count the votes but I think he miscalculated and instead of demobilizing the parliamentary majority I think he mobilized it more to get together to act and the vote was unambiguous, the majority was stable, so I think it was miscalculated if he wanted to influence the voting process in this way. He failed to demobilize the parliamentary majority.
They enjoyed committee votes once or twice, but committees don’t decide what parliament does. Committees only deliver opinions, Parliament concludes, so the joy of the rapporteur’s speech, who spent 15 minutes talking about everything but not the report on the committee’s action itself, was clearly premature.
Do you think President Andrzej Duda will sign the bill? There are also threats from the opposition, eg Member of Parliament Marcin Kierwiński, who stated in an interview with RMF FM that if he signs this project, the head of state “will bear the responsibility”.
I don’t think this is the first nor the last threat from them. I think that Mr. President will look here at the interests of the Polish state, and not at the threats of the opposition. As for myself, I can say that I posted a tweet in which I sarcastically wrote “veni, vidi, kaput” at the end. So much hatred poured over me, so many threats and various insults that I have never encountered it before in my history.
I see there is some amok in this electorate that is against us. In terms of content, these people cannot respond to anything, there is only great hatred and insults. And I don’t understand what they are afraid of, because we only want truth and justice. Nothing anymore.
We also hear from the opposition that you have had almost 8 years to set up such a committee, and doing it before the elections has a specific purpose. Why did the idea of setting up such a committee only now acquire a concrete dimension?
Regardless of if we did not appoint this committee, the opposition’s assessment and response would always be the same. There would always be a catchphrase – for example, that we only do business with the governments of our predecessors. We now have a long period here, including almost half of the Law and Justice government, because the whole of 2007, until 2022. So I can assure you that there will be plenty of activities for future members of the committee, and I am doing a appeal to the opposition: let them nominate candidates and report those issues they consider to be a threat to Poland’s interests and security.
I hope the president will sign it and the marshal will soon set a deadline for the submission of candidacies. We are waiting for nominations. Let them explore those threads that they themselves previously thought appropriate. Because Donald Tusk said it should be investigated. So let them investigate.
Or maybe the idea of creating this committee is also your response to the fact that the opposition has recently intensified suggestions that the PiS government is pro-Russian, acting in Russia’s interests, or even being installed by the Kremlin?
This is such a deviation that there are no words for it. I think our actions are the best proof of who we are. Our contribution to Ukraine is one of the largest in the world. Quantitatively, we may be ahead of countries like the United States or Great Britain, but when it comes to helping residents or refugees, we are ahead. If anyone considers these to be pro-Russian actions, it is a shame to comment on them. Anyway, I think Poles see what the truth is. Poland’s independence from Russia’s energy resources was made by Law and Justice, not PO-PSL, which is probably the best proof that we are not pro-Russian. We’re performing and we’re not saying anyone met anyone there. Of course the meetings are symbolic and the most important thing is action.
All the more so because we also perfectly remember the activities of the Civic Platform in relations with Russia and the fact that the government of Donald Tusk has not noticed this threat for quite some time, which was seen by Law and Justice, and rather by the late. President Lech Kaczynski.
Of course, these contracts with Russia, the gas contracts, the cancellation of debts to Gazprom – all this had no justification and it is really interesting how it happened, who persuaded them to do it, why they did such things and wanted to sign contracts also in contrary to the interests of the European Union, because the European Commission had to intervene in these agreements. And it was these actions of the PO-PSL government that were pro-Russian.
Thank you very much for the interview.
READ ALSO:
-What happened there? “Gazeta Wyborcza” Illustrates Articles on the Committee on Russian Influence with a Photo of… Tusk and Putin
-What are they afraid of?! Kierwiński threatens the Russian Influence Committee and threatens the president! “Responsibility Awaits”
-Tusk at the session of the Sejm. “Apparently he is afraid of something, as he follows the fate of the committee on Russian influence”
Source: wPolityce