Macron: ‘Poland isolates itself in Europe’

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that Poland was isolating itself within the European Union and Polish citizens “deserve better.” “Europe is a region created on the basis of values, a relationship with democracy and public freedoms which Poland is today in conflict with,” Macron explained. PM Beata Szydło, called Macron’s words “arrogant,” and responded by saying that he should focus on his own country’s affairs instead. “I advise the president that he should focus on the affairs of his own country, perhaps he may be able to achieve the same economic results and the same level of security for (French) citizens as those guaranteed by Poland,” she said. Macron said those words in Bulgaria, one of the stops on his CEE tour, where he went to discuss the posted workers issue, which Macron calls unfair. The issue concerns workers from the CEE region, who can, for a limited time, work for their local wages, while posted in the Western European countries. Macron called it a “social dumping” during his campaign, seeing this as an unfair competition from the CEE states, where wages are significantly lower than in the rest of Europe. Poland has already said that it will not change its stance, as the current situation is “in the interests of Polish workers.” Bulgarian PM Boyko Borissov at a joint conference with Macron said that he hopes that a compromise could be reached this year on the posted workers issue.