Senior MEPs in push to remove Polish politician as EP vice-president
PR dla Zagranicy
Alicja Baczyńska
12.01.2018 08:30
The heads of four groups in the European Parliament have called for the dismissal of Polish politician Ryszard Czarnecki from the post of the parliament's vice-president over what they described as his offensive remarks against a fellow MEP.
Photo: Pixabay/you_littleswine
The chairman of the EPP group, Manfred Weber; the head of the S&D group, Gianni Pittella; the leader of the ALDE group, Guy Verhofstadt; and the co-chair of the Greens-EFA group, Philippe Lamberts, forwarded a letter to that effect to European Parliament President Antonio Tajani on Wednesday.
The step was taken after Czarnecki likened fellow MEP Róża Thun to a “szmalcownik,” a derogatory term denoting people who blackmailed Jews hiding from the Nazis or informed on them to the occupying forces under German occupation in Poland during World War II.
“During World War II we had ‘szmalcownicy’, nowadays we have Róża von Thun und Hohenstein,” Czarnecki said in an interview for Poland's niezalezna.pl website, after Thun appeared in a documentary on the current situation in Poland produced by public German broadcaster NDR.
According to Czarnecki, Thun "has taken on the role of an informer against her own country.”
The signatories of the letter said that Czarnecki's "remarks exceed the boundaries of responsible political discourse, both on a personal and institutional level."
“It is unimaginable that with these statements and attitudes to colleagues Mr Czarnecki continues to represent as Vice-President the Parliament and you [EP President Antonio Tajani] personally,” the authors of the letter said.
(aba/gs)
Source: Dziennik