Polish MEP loses job as vice-president of European Parliament

A total of 447 European Parliament lawmakers on Wednesday voted to dismiss Czarnecki from his post, while 196 opposed the move.

A two-thirds majority was required to remove Czarnecki, a conservative Polish politician, from his role as one of the European Parliament’s 14 vice-presidents.

In January, the heads of four groups in the European Parliament called for Czarnecki’s dismissal after he likened Róża Thun, a Eurodeputy with Poland’s opposition Civic Platform (PO) party, to an informer preying on Jews during the Holocaust.

He used a derogatory Polish term that denotes people who blackmailed Jews hiding from the Nazis or informed on them to the occupying forces under the German occupation of Poland during World War II.

“During World War II we had szmalcownicy, nowadays we have Róża von Thun und Hohenstein,” Czarnecki said in an interview for Poland's niezalezna.pl website, after Thun appeared in a documentary produced by public German broadcaster NDR that was critical of Poland's conservative government.

According to Czarnecki, Thun "has taken on the role of an informer against her own country.”

Czarnecki’s successor will probably be elected at the next session of the European Parliament, according to reports.

Another MEP from Poland’s ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party is expected to fill the vacancy.

(gs/pk)

Source: IAR