Speaking at a campaign event on Tuesday, Nawrocki, a candidate backed by the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party in the upcoming presidential election, criticized the European Union and argued that Poland should guide the bloc toward “common sense” and greater security.
He also told the crowd in the eastern town of Wyszków that Warsaw’s primary alliance lies with the United States.
Nawrocki, who heads Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), also took aim at the political camp of his main rival, Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, accusing it of lacking ambition and neglecting national security.
He criticized past reductions in Poland’s armed forces and called for strengthening the military.
"We must build the largest land army within NATO in the European Union, not dismantle military units," Nawrocki said, adding that recruitment into the Polish Army had dropped threefold in the past two years.
In fact, critics point out that Poland's armed forces have been growing rapidly, and the country already has the third-largest military within NATO, after the United States and Turkey, according to some reports.
Nawrocki also opposed European Union policies on climate and migration, pledging to reject the EU’s migration pact.
“I will do everything I can to unilaterally withdraw from this migration agreement and prevent those who threaten us from entering,” he said.
The candidate positioned incumbent President Andrzej Duda as a guarantor of Poland’s stability and security until the end of his term.
“President Andrzej Duda ensures our security and our relations with Washington,” Nawrocki said.
On social issues, Nawrocki reiterated conservative views, saying that “there are only two biological sexes” and that marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman.
He also pledged not to raise the retirement age.
When asked about the US Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today (JUST) Act, also known as Act 447, which requires the US State Department to report on efforts to restitute Holocaust victims’ property, Nawrocki said: “Every law I sign will be with the Polish people in mind, not citizens of foreign countries."
During an earlier event in the town of Maków Mazowiecki, Nawrocki repeated his claim that Poland is crucial to the European Union’s survival.
“Poland is more needed by the EU than the EU is by Poland,” he said.
(rt/gs)
Source: IAR/PAP