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https://warpcast.com/~/channel/europoooooor
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matt 💭 pfp
matt 💭
@matthewmorek
Eurocrats: ID cards and passports to be produced by foreign companies. Because Poland cannot have control over its own documents. The European Commission is threatening Poland with financial penalties for having vital documents - such as ID cards, driver's licenses and passports - produced by the Polish Security Printing Works, bypassing a bidding procedure. Polish Security Printing Works, a state-owned company that has been producing secure prints for more than 100 years, has an unfair monopoly, according to the European Commission. After all, by what right would a nation-state have control over its documents? And it's not just about identity documents. It's also about ballots, excise stamps and other secure prints, the nature of which means that the process of creating them should be fully controlled by the state for security reasons. Brussels is demanding the opening of tenders in which, for example, German or French companies - as long as they are not Polish - will be allowed to compete. We have two months to comply. If not, penalties will fly. This is not just a matter of "public procurement." It's a question of sovereignty. A state that has no control over the production of its own documents, ballots, passports, excise stamps - ceases to be a state.
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azb pfp
azb
@azbest
Don't worry, no one seems to be interested in resolving the issue right away 😀
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matt 💭 pfp
matt 💭
@matthewmorek
What do you think the solution should be in this case? They gave Polish gov time till August before they bring the hammer down (hefty fines for insubordination).
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azb
@azbest
The thing is that every member state should comply with that, so it's really up to the Polish government to argue why it shouldn't. That doesn't seem very hard: given the political climate now, you can expect the Commission to be rather lenient as to what constitutes a 'satisfactory response'...
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matt 💭 pfp
matt 💭
@matthewmorek
you expect a sovereign country to give away control over printing of the most important national documents to a foreign nation? no member state should be forced to comply with such insane requests. that's the purpose of being a sovereign nation: you control what's yours
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azb
@azbest
And, you know, it's not like Iceland or Lithuania lost their sovereignty to Poland just because PWPW produces some documents for them...
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