Rosa Thun is also a member of the European Parliament and, as a representative of Poland’s largest opposition group, the Christian Democratic Forum, is a member of the Group of the European People’s Party (CDA from the Netherlands is a member of the largest group in the European Parliament).
To explain: Civic Forum was the previous governing party and commanded respect for Poland in the European Union during Donald Tusk’s premiership.

As a result, Donald Tusk has been President of the European Council (heads of government) for more than three years now. In Poland itself, he is now called ‘anti-Polish’ because of the way he operates in Brussels. He would leave no room for what is so beautifully called ‘Polishness’.

But back to Rosa Von Thun und Hohenstein. Because of her marital status and because of the message she gave to German television, Czarnecki has now called her “szmalcownik.” That, says Bobinski, is not just a swear word. In the Second World War, the swear word stood for traitor. We in the Netherlands called those people then and occasionally still now ‘NSB’er’. “But the word in Polish certainly also means something like ’the lowest of the low’, scum of society. Poles who were guilty of financial gain after betraying Jews to Germany were also given this name, says Bobinkski. The convicted employee Nizmansky had betrayed many Jews in Slovakia during the war years.

None of this directly affects Thun and her husband. They were both born well after the Second World War. For the chairmen of the political groups in the European Parliament, it is therefore legitimate to ask whether this is only a question of the right to freedom of expression or whether Czarnecki has crossed the line of libel and slander. If the latter is the case, he may not be able to continue as a member of the Bureau, they think.

But for now, little publicity has been given to this issue. It is only in the last few days that small reports about the deliberations of the group chairmen have appeared in the largest Polish quality newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and in the Brussels newspaper Politico.
For his defenders in Poland, it’s clear. In their letters to European journalists, they write, among other things: “This would amount to new sanctions from the European Union against Poland.

The current government has come to power legitimately and is doing all sorts of things to combat poverty. A reform of the judiciary is also taking place to combat abuse of power and corruption within the courts. We are doing our best to promote the values of the European Union in Poland. But Czarnecki’s resignation as vice-president of the European Parliament leads us to believe that it was not the European Union that we joined.”

Rosa Thun, according to Mrs Bobinski, does not mince her words. It vigorously defends the European Commission’s efforts to bring Poland into line with the European rules on the reform of the judiciary.

It also defends its group chairman, Manfred Weber (a Bavarian Christian Democrat), who states on his website that she fully supports the European Commission and, on behalf of this institution, Frans Timmermans, in the procedure based on Article 7 of the European Treaty, which may deprive Poles of voting rights in the European Councils of Ministers. “The European Commission is the guardian of the treaties,” Weber writes. That is the jargon of the Commission’s power to call to account Member States that are in breach of the Treaty.
In the end, there now seems to be a growing conviction in Polish government circles that talking to the European Commission is better than standing firm. Last Sunday evening, 21 January, Frans Timmermans received the new Polish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Czaputowicz, in Brussels. In a tweet, Timmermans said he was happy with the conversation and would like to continue the dialogue in Warsaw.