Last November, the Court of Justice of the European Union issued a ruling that experts from the Ordo Iuris Institute had long warned against. At the same time, we are seeing the results of our intensive efforts to secure allies against the CJEU’s ideological aggression and the European Commission’s centralizing ambitions. Ordo Iuris donors and experts are at the very heart of this great battle for normalcy, for the family, and for sovereignty.
What exactly did the CJEU rule?
The Court of Justice of the European Union issued a judgment in a case concerning two Poles who “married” in Berlin in 2018, which a Polish authority—in accordance with the law—could not recognize. The CJEU ruled that Poland is required to recognize a marriage between two EU citizens of the same sex legally contracted in another Member State.
Lawyers of the Ordo Iuris Institute immediately after the ruling set about correcting manipulations and overinterpretations of the CJEU ruling, which LGBT lobbyists tried to use to convince the Polish public that the EU court had ordered Poland to introduce the institution of “same-sex marriage” into Polish law.
In fact, the CJEU judgment obliges us only to provide some way of certifying that persons of the same sex are in a “marriage” legally contracted in another Member State. In theory, it would be enough to just create an electronic registry of legalized same-sex unions entered into abroad.
However, it must be clearly emphasized that the CJEU judgment is unlawful. It was decided beyond the Court’s jurisdiction, the limits of which are strictly defined in the European treaties. Moreover, the so-called British-Polish protocol, drafted during the adoption of the Treaty of Lisbon, protects Poland against abuses by the CJEU; it contains a clear assurance that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights will not extend the powers of the Court of Justice of the European Union to confer new rights that are not recognized under Polish and British law (before Brexit in the UK’s case).
Ordo Iuris lawyers also recalled in their comments, among other things, two resolutions of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, adopted by an overwhelming majority on the occasion of Poland’s accession to the EU, in which it was emphasized that “Polish legislation concerning the moral order of social life, the dignity of the family, marriage and upbringing, and the protection of life is not subject to any limitations through international regulations.” This position was then reiterated in the resolution of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland of April 1, 2008 regarding consent to the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon.
In the accession referendum, Poles never voted, therefore, to join a community that interferes with the provisions of Polish family law or the scope of the protection of life.
The systematic curtailment of Poland’s independence continues
We recently reported also on the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights concerning abortion in Poland, in which the Court in Strasbourg held that, due to alleged flaws in the composition of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal that ruled on the unconstitutionality of abortion on eugenic grounds, its ban violates Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (concerning the right to respect for private and family life). Because the woman who brought a case against Poland before the ECHR had an abortion in the Netherlands, the judges of the Court in Strasbourg ordered that she be paid €15,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage and €1,495 in respect of pecuniary damage.
It may soon turn out that the Court of Justice of the European Union will even block our ability to… protect children from accessing pornography on the Internet. In September, the Advocate General of the CJEU issued an opinion questioning the legal measures introduced in France to effectively verify the age of users of pornographic websites.
And that’s not all. In recent days, the European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality voted to approve the initiative “My Voice, My Choice”, which calls for the creation of a substantial EU budgetary reserve to fund abortions for citizens of those Member States that protect life. Part of the so-called “Christian democracy,” that is, the European People’s Party, voted in favor of the initiative.
It is hard to imagine a more brazen and flagrant violation of the treaties…
The Eurocrats want to blackmail us again!
Unfortunately, everything indicates that the problem of the systematic curtailment of Polish sovereignty at the EU level will only deepen.
Ordo Iuris lawyers had already warned several months ago that the draft Multiannual Financial Framework for 2028-2034, presented by the European Commission, included a proposal to link the disbursement of all funds from the European Union budget to member states’ compliance with the principle of the rule of law.
Just a few months ago, one could still be under the illusion that this idea was only a preliminary proposal that would disappear from the final version of the budget. It is now clear that Eurocrats are determined to impose this rule, which could prove to be the nail in the coffin of Polish sovereignty. They have repeatedly proven that the concept of “rule of law” is being used instrumentally for mere financial blackmail against Member States.
On the Ordo Iuris Institute website we published an analysis of the EU’s “LGBTIQ Equality Strategy 2026–2030”, in which the European Commission not only announces its intention to introduce a ban on so-called conversion therapies, to recognize “hate speech” as an offense prosecuted throughout the EU, and to force Member States to recognize adoption by same-sex couples and formalize same-sex unions, but also announced that a given country’s failure to comply with the requirements of the “Union of Equality” will be interpreted as a violation of fundamental rights and will serve as grounds for blocking EU funds.
It is therefore clear that the use of European funds to financially blackmail EU member states is no longer just a one-off proposal included in a single draft, but a plan adopted by eurofederalists to build an EU superstate in which Brussels will decide on everything that happens in Poland, using money from the EU budget (which comes from our taxes!).
Ordo Iuris lawyers have prepared a detailed legal opinion, both on the aforementioned “equality” strategy, as well as the proposed changes to the EU budget, in which we demonstrated that the proposal contained in the draft EU budget is a direct repetition of the “conditionality mechanism” that was used to blackmail Poland with funds from the National Recovery Plan. Let me just remind you that the funds blocked under the Law and Justice government—used to blackmail Poland into abandoning the judicial reform—were paid out to us immediately after the change of government, without any real changes being made to the laws relating to the justice system!
In our analysis, we warn that including the principle of conditionality in the draft EU budget will give EU officials a powerful tool to influence the policies of member states—also in areas that, under the EU treaties, do not fall within the European Union’s sphere of competence.
Therefore, Ordo Iuris lawyers will consistently monitor the work on the draft EU budget, which will still be negotiated with the European Parliament and the Member States. At every stage of the budget approval process, we will intervene, appealing to the consciences of all decision-makers committed to the sovereignty of their own nations.
We show how to properly reform the Union
For the defense of Poland’s sovereignty, the most important thing today is a comprehensive proposal for EU reform, contained in the report “The Great Reset. Restoring Member State Sovereignty in the European Union,” which premiered in March of this year (in Washington) and in which we presented two scenarios for such a reform.
We sent our publication to Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), the judges and Advocates General of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), EU commissioners, and the heads of government, foreign ministers, and ministers for EU affairs of EU member states. The report reached a total of 567 European decision-makers. The publication has already been translated into English, Hungarian, French, Spanish, and Italian.
I had the honor of personally presenting the report in Washington, Budapest, Warsaw, Madrid, and Brussels, where nearly a hundred Members of the European Parliament and their staff from many countries attended the event. In turn, the Director of the Ordo Iuris Communication Center, Olivier Bault, presented the report in France in November. More than 50 French lawmakers representing all currents of the French right, journalists, and representatives of leading French think tanks attended the launch of the report’s French translation in Paris. Our report was later covered even by the website of the daily Le Figaro, which is the most widely read news website in France.
In November, we organized in the Romanian Parliament—together with the Mihai Eminescu Conservative Institute—the conference “Sovereignty Now. United Against EU Migration, Green Deal & Overreach.” We also presented our report on EU reform at this event. The conference was attended by, among others, Romanian parliamentarians, MEPs, and former Romanian presidential candidate George Simion. At the conclusion of the conference, there was a ceremonial signing of a declaration of cooperation between Ordo Iuris and the Mihai Eminescu Conservative Institute.
I also spoke about the revival of freedom and sovereignty in Europe in Madrid and in Brussels, where the conference “Battle for the Soul of Europe“, organized by the Hungarian Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), took place.
In this way, we are doing something that no one in Europe has done so far—instead of complaining about the troubling direction of change in the European Union, we are presenting a concrete counterproposal and building a broad coalition of defenders of sovereignty.
Ordo Iuris under fire
No wonder there’s a frontal attack from the circles of the leading left-liberal Polish daily newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, on Ordo Iuris. In two consecutive articles, the authors at Gazeta Wyborcza describe the close cooperation between Ordo Iuris and partners at The Heritage Foundation, whose “Project 2025” has become one of the cornerstones of the agenda being pursued in the United States by Donald Trump. Gazeta Wyborcza warns that the latest Ordo Iuris reports may replicate the success of our American partners and become the basis for the actions of Poland’s future government.
In one respect, it’s only fair to concede that the authors of Gazeta Wyborcza are right—we don’t just complain; we develop ambitious solutions and persuade international partners to back them.
While liberals and proponents of a “European superstate” with a capital in Brussels have been sounding the alarm over the new U.S. National Security Strategy, we draw attention to several of its points that are fully consistent with the approach to the European Union we have been systematically presenting in Washington.
First, the U.S. government accurately diagnoses that the sources of Europe’s problems are a civilizational crisis and the EU’s actions, including attacks on freedom of speech and the imposition of censorship, undermining the sovereignty of member states, supporting uncontrolled migration, and the breakdown of national identities.
Second, the document provides that, in U.S. policy toward Europe, priority should be given to supporting patriotic parties and the resistance of European nations to the EU’s current course—including support for the healthy nations of Central Europe—through trade relations, armaments, political cooperation, as well as cultural and educational exchanges.
This is a key battle for Polish independence.
Undoubtedly, we are now at an absolutely crucial moment in the battle for Poland’s independence. The European Union, which was originally supposed to be a community of close cooperation among free, independent, sovereign nations, is moving ever more boldly toward building a single state in which everyone will be forced to accept millions of migrants from Africa and the Middle East, to introduce abortion and ‘on-demand’ gender transition, to grant marital privileges to homosexuals, to introduce vulgar sexualization and gender indoctrination of children in schools, and to pursue a reckless climate policy that will inevitably lead to a radical increase in the cost of living for each of us.
We have been talking about all these threats for years. It’s already too late to sound the alarm today. Changes in the EU have gone so far that many Poles indifferently accept even the fact that Eurocrats blackmail us with our own money and impose changes on us in areas that fall within the exclusive competence of national governments.
We must respond today and say a firm NO!
Thanks to the sustained support of our Friends and Donors, the Ordo Iuris Institute has now become a widely respected brand in Europe and the United States. This is extremely important because more and more decisions that have a significant impact on life in our homeland are being made outside our country’s borders. Without us, the only Polish voice in that space would be that of Donald Tusk’s.
Anyone who joins the ranks of our Donors or members of the Circle of Friends of Ordo Iuris becomes a co-creator of our successes and takes part in the contemporary fight for national sovereignty.
Advocate Jerzy Kwaśniewski – President of the Ordo Iuris Institute.
Source of cover photo: Ordo Iuris
