Transcriber: Maciej Mackiewicz Reviewer: Elisabeth Buffard
I got a litte stage fright, I got to admit,
because my last public appearance was at my 40th birthday,
It was at two o'clock in the morning.
I was a little bit indisposed, half of the people left.
And I gotta tell you, it was a sympathetic audience, you know, my birthday.
Hopefully you're not leaving,
but you're probably wondering what a politician is actually doing here.
Well, for one, I'm here to fight a few stereotypes.
None other but the Prime Minister of Great Britain,
David Cameron, in his TED appearance, said that
politics is showbiz for very, very ugly people.
(Laughter)
But, on a more serious note, I'm here to talk about
the European Union.
Boring subject, probably for most of you.
By the way, after listening to Rabbi Schudrich,
I think that our greatest achievement in Poland
is, that we have actually
become after so many years a boring country.
Finally!
But I'm here to talk about the European Union and two stereotypes.
One being that it is no longer relevant in the world,
that we can forget about it,
I mean, you know, we think about the EU now today:
crisis, sclerotic, not interesting...
Even in 2004, we in Poland were excited about it --
I can attest it with a number of students
who were actually attending my classes, then and now --
now we take it for granted.
And second stereotype is that it doesn't actually relate to our lives.
Well, both are wrong.
First of all, look at population:
Basically, if you take all the European countries together,
we are third in the world.
This is a power to be reckoned with.
Whatever you actually think, guys, trade for example:
20% of trade is generated by the EU.
Think about hundred biggest companies in the world.
We get excited about rising powers,
we get excited about China, India, Brazil.
How many companies in the world, hundred biggest, are Brazilian?
One. Indian, one. Chinese, three.
The biggest companies are American, 33 in the world, and European, 37.
If you think about wealth,
we generate actually 1/4 of wealth in the world.
Still, if you think about life expectancy, we live the longest,
and if we are going to go on a diet--
and I guess some of us, me included, need it, we are going to live even longer --
Research and development, education, clean environment,
green energy, cultural influence.
We are on top of the world.
One of the companies sponsoring this event, as I just discovered, is British Council.
You know in how many countries it's actually having its offices?
120
Alliance Francaise is better, but still it's pretty impressive.
Alliance francaise, 140 counties.
Goethe-Institut, 70 countries in the world.
We are really a cultural power,
when it comes to our influence, to be reckoned with.
A think tank: you know, I used to be a think tanker,
I have to tell you, and an academic teacher,
I went in this pyramid of social prestige
from the top to the rock bottom.
As a politician, I guess only a used car salesman is below me.
And now I'm doing this speech as I was selling something.
They were doing a global presence index:
ok, US is first, but then Germany, France, UK
when it comes to military presence,
when it comes to all the things I was talking about:
trade, wealth and so on and so forth.
Austria accepts twice more immigrants than Brazil,
even though it's 20 times smaller.
Denmark has larger service sector than Russia.
Tiny Slovenia wins three times more medals in international competitions than India.
Luxemburg, 300,000 inhabitants,
sends as many soldiers to peacekeeping missions as China.
Greece publishes more scientific research than South Africa.
And we get excited about those rising powers.
Who is trade partner number one for America? EU.
For Brazil, EU, for Russia, EU.
And even, when you ask about India and China, the answer is still the same.
We talk aboutbureaucracy, this terrible European bureaucracy,
but if you look at a federal state,
and basically now the EU is fulfilling the same role,
and I took military, post, health outside,
they actually have one million people employed.
Look at Germany or Ital, 300,000.
How many in the EU?
34,000 guys employed by the EU.
You might not like this bureaucracy, but it's tiny and pretty effective.
Look at EU budget:
people say we waste money, we spend too much money,
right now especially, in times of austerity,
140 billion euros every year.
You know how much is that?
It's like every European drinking a cup of coffee every day, that's not much.
If you compare it to an American budget, yearly budget, federal budget,
again I've taken out military expenditure,
post offices, everything that the EU does and do,
it's eight times bigger. Eight times bigger, guys!
EU and you.
This is the thing that we sometimes forget about the Europeean Union,
we think, you know, it's like, foreign policy, not interesting,
but most of the decisions actually that have influence over our daily lives
are now made there, not here.
And that's why you, even though you probably think it's boring
and probably half of you are asleep by now,
you should get interested, because your future, your destiny,
slowly, but surely, is also decided in the European Union
and also by the European Parliament.
Some of us actually work there.
Consumer rights, you know, what you eat, safe products,
cheaper payments between countries,
passport, Erasmus...
You know, I'm fourty years old and when I was studying
we had to do a lot to go abroad and study, get a scholarship.
Now my students have to do everything they can not to get a scholarship.
That's the change the EU brought us.
Dangerous airlines on black lists, clear pricing of airline tickets,
the fact that we can finally move
and pay not that much money for it,
that again has been brought by the EU.
Passenger rights as well.
Single market: prices are cheaper by 20%,
whatever you might think about this dreadful Union,
actually the prices have been brought down.
Roaming charges.
You're on vacations, you can call your mamma, finally!
Because it's cheap, it doesn't cost as much as it used to.
And if you don't believe it, go to Croatia,
which still is not in the EU and compare the prices.
Monopolies.
We are getting rid of them and the prices are going down.
I could go on and on and on,
fight against money laundring, arrest warrants, border guards,
recycling - a huge success for the EU.
Without the EU, it wouldn't be recycling too much
and I can tell you, because I've seen some debates
between countries on recycling,
they are not too happy about it, some of them.
-- Unfortunately Poland included, don't quote me on that --
Recognition on profesional qualifications, freedom to provide services,
paternity leave, very important.
My wife is probably watching it, so I got to skip it quickly.
Clear water, EU monitors 573 swimming pools, beaches, whatever have you.
Imagine lying on the beach, your kids playing with toys,
there's toys safety, there is clean water, you can call your mamma as I said,
everything is regulated by the EU now.
Vaccination against Bluetongue,
yeah, sometimes we do crazy stuff as well in Brussels.
If you look at a sitting of a Polish government,
half of what those guys, my colleagues do,
is European law.
And if you think about National Parliament, it's basically the same.
So we are now in a business of actually translating
European laws into national laws more and more.
The action is really happening there
even though the press is just telling you about
those guys who earn too much money,
huge bureaucracy and so on and so forth.
Some of it might be true, but I submit to you,
you shouldn't be focusing on that too much,
you should be focusing
on the real decisions which are being taken there
with the participation of this terrible, dreadful European Parliament,
which now has equal rights and actually co-decides with member states
more and more on every issue that I've mentioned.
Those guys, me included, take important decisions
and those terrible parliamentarians actually, seriously depend on you.
I was there not to do any political hagglings, so I'll leave it at that.
And what about Poles and our position in the EU now?
I submit to you, that it is changing so quickly
that it has never been changing so quickly.
That stereotype of a Pole has changed so much in the past ten years
that you couldn't believe it.
And you probably think that it's cheap political propaganda,
but I seriously think that we, really, for the first time in our history,
have a certain influence over our destiny.
Because whatever topic you touch, Poles are in there,
taking active decisions, building coalitions.
We have people in important places, people listen to us.
For years we were disregarded, people were not interested in what Poles think.
There were some stereotypes.
If you were to read foreign press ten years ago, Poland was never mentioned,
unless there was elections or something happened to Wałęsa.
Now any topic you touch, in El Pais, El Mundo,
you take French newspapers, you take Financial Times,
Poland is mentioned all the time, because we are important,
people want to learn what is our mind set.
And what do they tell me?
They tell me we are different,
because we are full of energy, because we think out of the box,
we are flexible, we are different.
Yes, sometimes it is difficult to work with us,
because we don't follow patterns, we cut corners.
It's an advantage and sometimes a disadvantage, but it works.
If you go to Switzerland and people tell you
"How was in Warsaw? It's such a dynamic, vibrant place! Unbelievable!"
I tell you one thing:
after this terrible tragedy that we had in Smoleńsk (presidential plain crash)
we were all thinking what to do about it
and our commisionary in the EU, Lewandowski, said:
"We have to lower the flags before the Commision building".
And they told him, "Impossible, it's sunday,
three days, protocols, they have to think
and talk to each other for three days."
And he said, "Give me the number of for the guy who is responsible for it,
Jose Fernandes, give me the guy of Baroso, the Commision president."
He called the commision president and told him, "Do it!"
He said, "Impossible, protocols, bla bla bla"
"Call Fernandes and tell him to do it."
He calls Fernandes, Fernades receives
the first phone call from the president of the European Commision,
BOOM, all the flags go down.
Other people couldn't do it.
We had a suicide guy on the building of the European Parliament,
their best police negotiators,
who brought him down? Jerzy Buzek (former Polish Prime Minister).
He went up, cancelled all his meetings, talked to him and then he helped him
because it was a Romanian immigrant.
That's who we are, guys!
We can have some complexes, and os on and so forth, yes we do,
but basically we are different and we have to use it to our advantage.
(In Polish) Thank You very much, if you'd like to continue this later,
or ask some questions, I invite you to my facebook page.
(Applause)