Polish leader Donald Tusk has criticised Denmark’s “nationalist” border checks in his maiden speech to the European Parliament under the Polish EU presidency.
ANDREW RETTMAN | EUOBSERVER.COM
"I am against any barriers to internal free movement under the pretext of dealing with migration problems. What Denmark is doing is a concern for anybody who thinks that free movement is going to be restricted even further," he told MEPs in Strasbourg on Wednesday (5 July).
"Undoing the European construction at this time and turning to nationalism as an answer to the crisis would be a very big mistake."
Under the EU treaty, the European Commission is tasked with protecting EU laws while the rotating presidency is supposed to act as a neutral broker in negotiations between member states.
Tusk in Warsaw last Friday also came close to accusing French, German and Italian leaders of hypocrisy in their handling of Tunisian migrants and the Greek bailout, as "politicians who say they support the EU … but at the same time take steps that weaken the union."
Denmark on Tuesday deployed 50 extra customs officers on its German and Swedish borders. Copenhagen says the move is to fight drug trafficking. But most commentators see it as a sop to the increasingly powerful, right-wing Danish People’s Party.
Tusk’s pro-EU message was applauded by MEPs from across the political spectrum. "I’ve always said that you should be in our political group," the Liberal group leader, Guy Verhoftstadt said (Tusk’s Civic Platform party sits with the centre-right EPP group).
At a press conference following his speech in plenary, Tusk used a plate of Polish strawberries as a symbol of Poland’s "fresh" approach to the union’s pessimistic mood.
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