Ryszard Antoni Legutko, on behalf of the ECR Group. – Mr President, it is highly probable that the Council will start with everyone congratulating Chancellor Merkel on her electoral victory. Indeed, Ms Merkel should be congratulated. Firstly, because she won for the fourth time, which is remarkable; secondly, because she won after having made the worst political decision of her life: opening the European borders without bothering to consult anyone. So much for solidarity, by the way.

Yet, while Ms Merkel’s victory was a success, it should also be viewed in equal measure as a wake-up call for Europe. After all, the two main parties scored the worst results for years, something that only months ago happened in the French elections too. For many years, Germany epitomised what political science calls ‘consensual politics’. We had a sample of it a while ago in what Mr Weber said, to put it crudely, a sort of united front in which everyone tends to speak with one voice. But if in a country like this – and Germany is just such an example, because of its remarkable political culture – we see some cracks in the hitherto monolithic structure, perhaps we are witnessing the beginning of some kind of pluralism underway in the western part of the European Union.

As for me – and on this point I believe I differ from most of you – I believe it is a good thing and long overdue, considering the stifling atmosphere of European politics, the absence of any serious debate, and the routine bullying of anyone who dares to voice a different opinion. The Council will take up for the nth time the problem of immigration – perhaps the most misrepresented, mystified, lied about, contaminated to the core by political correctness, problem of recent decades.

The good thing is that the infamous mandatory relocation scheme is now history. It is dead. It is dead and gone. It is an ex—relocation scheme. But from the very beginning this was a bad idea. This was a stillborn idea, and whatever progress we have achieved in controlling immigration – and we have made some progress – this scheme had nothing to do with it whatsoever. Will this idea disappear? I am not sure. Experience has taught us that in the European Union bad ideas die hard.

There has been a lot of talk about the new European asylum policy, and it is a good thing that we should be working on it and making it better and better. President Macron mentioned it in his speech too, but President Macron’s speech was not really the exposition of a strategy as a lot of us expected it to be. It was more – I apologise for the comparison – like a pep talk, but beautifully delivered as always.

So whatever shape this asylum policy – and everything that surrounds it that is related to immigration – will take, it should not repeat the errors of the past. The asylum policy on immigration is not a matter for a majority to decide. There has to be a consensus of all Member States. Otherwise, we will be back in the situation where the big guys do what they want, they can get away with anything and they order the others are not so strong to obey. That has to be over. Demographic policy is too subtle and too complex a problem to be imposed by the European political and ideological bulldozers.

Of course, anything is possible so it can be predicted that remarks like mine will be ignored and the EU will sink more deeply into the sea of troubles, because we are already quite deep in the sea of troubles. There should be some hard thinking rather than going in the same direction with the same remedy – whatever happens, more of the same. That is not a solution. I have serious doubts if the coming Council will start rethinking, but I really hope they do. I do hope against hope.

(Applause from the ECR Group)