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Rather than contemplating the multi-speed EU supported by French President Emmanuel Macron, the bloc should be a union of “free” and equal nations, Duda told an economic forum in Krynica, Poland. While the EU is preoccupied with the U.K.’s exit, its biggest risk is if some countries integrate further and leave others behind in a “B-class,” he said. [...]
“Brexit is not a risk for the EU, if it even comes to that,” Duda said on Tuesday. “A bigger threat is if the EU starts to break apart into a multi-speed union, into blocs where some are stronger and can decide about others. Then it would lose attractiveness not only for those in the B- and C-classes, but also those seated in the A-class.”
Poland is fearful it will lose sway in the EU if a core group of countries, such as those sharing the euro, decides to integrate further. On the other hand, it’s struggling to find allies who want to dilute the powers of EU institutions and give national parliaments more say, especially as the bloc’s hitherto biggest advocate of a looser union -- the U.K. -- is negotiating its exit from the club.
“The end result could be a divided EU that’s not politically or economically viable, which may break apart the bloc,” Duda said.
Facing Discrimination
Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that Polish businesses were being “discriminated” against in some western EU nations that he said were trying to dismantle the bloc’s single market.
France’s Macron campaigned last month to end “social dumping,” which he says happens when people from less-expensive EU countries travel to work in more-expensive ones for salaries closer to what they’re paid at home, drawing a rebuke from Warsaw.
“When we started to succeed, our EU partners began to place curbs on the free movement of services, calling it social dumping,” Morawiecki said at the forum. “We’re concerned about what these developed EU countries are doing.”
Even as Poland has fallen out with its allies in the EU over the past two years, the government says it’s not interested in leaving the bloc. The country is the biggest net recipient of the bloc’s budget. [...]