Verbatim report of proceedings

Monday, 12 December 2022 - Strasbourg

Statement by the President

  Ryszard Antoni Legutko, Chair of the ECR Group. – Madam President, well, there is not much to be said. A lot of facts have already come out, and I’m sure more will come out in the future. Perhaps some of them quite surprising in a most unpleasant sort of way. But you are right, of course, Madam President, that a European institution – the European Parliament – was targeted by the bad guys. They probably consider the Parliament to be a place with several weak spots. Indeed, they succeeded to a degree that shocked a lot of us.

I always wonder, to what extent is it a problem of the personal weaknesses of our colleagues, former colleagues or staffers, and to what extent is it a problem of a system, of a structure, and of rules and procedures? Probably both elements should be taken into account, and I wish there could be some kind of critical objective analysis of this phenomenon. After all, this is a huge institution, which is very complex and not easy to manage.

Such a critical analysis should be conducted with somebody from outside, not from our midst, for obvious reasons, that we are more interested in sustaining this institution and defending it no matter what we say openly. I would suggest that we should have a sort of critical description of the way such an institution functions. Perhaps that would give us an insight into what was wrong and how to prevent similar developments from happening in the future.

One last point: one thing that will certainly not improve the reputation of European Parliament is pompous, highfalutin rhetoric. This will not help. I have an impression that we very much like to indulge in lofty language that didn’t help in the future, hasn’t helped and won’t help. Just do something real. We want the real thing, not rhetoric. Rhetoric is a very easy thing.