Different Hymn Sheets and Drummers

Poland and Hungary Out of Euro-Step

It is ironic indeed that the European Union permitted Hungary and Poland to join its rank of nations.  Doubtless there were plenty of European eurocrats who assumed that these two nations would gradually be moulded into secular humanistic nations and eventually join the rest of Europe in spirit as well as form.

But things are not working out too well in that regard--at least at the moment.  Hungary and Poland are insisting that their self-identity as Christian nations be respected by the secularist nations in the rest of the EU.  A recent case in point occurred when Poland and Hungary refused to sign an EU Human Rights report because it happened to make no mention of persecution against Jews and Christians.

The European Union’s annual report on civil rights will not be officially adopted because it will be vetoed by member states Poland and Hungary, which complain that while it describes protecting LGBT people and immigrants, the growing persecution of Christians and Jews is not mentioned.

Poland was first to stand up against the document, with Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro announcing his nation would not ratify the report on Thursday. Because the update on the application of the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, published annually since 2010, has failed to be approved unanimously by all EU member states, the 2017 edition would not now be adopted at all.


Poland was subsequently joined by fellow central-European conservative nation Hungary in opposition to the document’s contents, which a Polish government source told wPolityce “is important, because it shows that we are not alone in the important matter of defending Christian rights in Europe and in the world”.

 Leading Polish broadsheet Rzeczpospolita reports the reasoning of Justice Minister Ziobro on the decision to block the European Union report, when he explained that small acts of religious hatred, as having been visited upon Christians in Europe recently, can lead to greater acts.

Ziobro said: “It is the cause of physical attacks on those who bear symbols of faith, such as beating a year ago two Polish women returning from the Holy Mass in a church in Brussels or a resident of Berlin who had Christian crosses around his neck.    It is the reason for attacks on religious objects, such as arson in July of a church in Orléans in France or throwing Molotov cocktails in a Swedish synagogue in Gothenburg.”

When Poland asked the European committee chairman to add religious groups to the rights report on an equal footing to “persons with different sexual orientations, children of immigrants, or women”, the EU body agreed to add Muslims, to which Poland is reported to have agreed to. When it was subsequently made clear that religious groups would be removed altogether, Poland objected.

Contrasting its own record to that of the broader European Union, the Justice ministry under Ziobro took the occasion of the Fundamental Rights report to note that Poland was one of the first European nations to give votes to women, and has never criminalised homosexuality.