Poland’s finance minister has hit back at French president Emmanuel Macron’s claim that central and eastern European governments treat the EU “like a supermarket”, in the latest sign of the fractious relationship between Warsaw and Paris, reports the Financial Times.
In an interview with several European newspapers last month, Mr Macron linked Britain’s vote to leave the EU with the arrival of large numbers of workers from eastern Europe, and warned against leaders “having a cynical approach to the EU that only served as dispensing credit without respecting its values”.
His words provoked a swift backlash with Poland’s prime minister Beata Szydlo accusing him of “hostility”, and at a long-anticipated congress of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party in the small town of Przysucha in central Poland on Saturday, Mateusz Morawiecki continued the theme.
“When President Macron says that he doesn’t want the EU to be like a supermarket, then I agree in 100 per cent. I also wouldn’t want the French banks, French supermarkets to be able to carry out economic activities here without barriers, and for our drivers, our carriers, our builders and consulting and IT companies, to be subjected to these restrictions and additional duties,” he said.
“It’s true that there are many Polish drivers in the car parks of Paris or Amsterdam. But on the streets of Krakow, Koszalin or Suwałki, there are also many French supermarkets, Dutch banks or German media. We can willingly switch — but I don’t know if they would like to.”
EU governments are split along east-west lines on a number of issues, ranging from the relocation of refugees to the bloc’s rules governing the conditions under which workers can be “posted” from one member state to work temporarily in another.