Lech Walesa Slams Farage-Style Populists, Backs EU and Euro

Beginning with Ronald Reagan, conservatives worldwide have hailed the electrician from Gdansk as one of the leading figures in the beginning of the end of the Cold War.

But in hailing Walesa, many on the right might be surprised to learn that he has little tolerance for the contemporary nationalists and populists who are increasingly becoming the international voices of the right.

In striking contrast, Walesa — now 82 and semi-retired — made it clear in a visit to Washington, D.C., last week that he supports some of the major targets of the international right such as the European Union and the single European currency known as the euro.

At both a session of the Ronald Reagan Foundation last Thursday and a private discussion on Friday, Newsmax asked Walesa his opinion of the rise of populism throughout Europe, exemplified by such figures as Nigel Farage in the United Kingdom, Marine Le Pen in France, and Andre Ventura of Portugal's Chega Party.

While not mentioning any specific names, he replied: "After the previous era [in politics], no one trusts anyone.

"We elect demagogic populists knowing they are inadequate. We find people who are hardly of faith."

"And if Russia succeeds in conquering Ukraine, it will have an advantage over everyone else," he warned.

In condemning the nationalism that focuses rage on the European Union, Walesa made clear what side he was on.

"We must turn from these small minute countries and have bigger structures," he said. "This also requires bureaucracy, like air traffic controllers.

"In our case, we call this the EU. And it must be there. AI has to work for us. But this is impossible where you have rivalries, where one is ... always trying to outdo the other."

Of the Brexit vote in which the British decided to leave the EU, the Polish politician said: "[The EU] had a problem. [They] had ever-growing offices to watch over everyone and that's the story of the way British think and they don't like it.

"They don't understand that in a while, the chafe will separate from the wheat and we must learn to trust each other."

As for nationalist parties among the member-nations who criticize the EU, Walesa likened them to his own eight children.

"When every one of my kids grew up to reach the oven," he said, "I always told them there's a cooker and don't touch it or they'll get burnt. And each of them got burnt.

"But once they did get burnt, I never had to tell them again. In society, it's simply a process we go through."

Regarding Americans who say they don't like the EU, Walesa said there was no alternative.

In his words, "What else can we do to come to an agreement on trade? We need to come to an agreement on trade and these things aren't created by themselves." 

"In everything we do, we need to be like physicians. First there is diagnosis. When you are thinking about anything — Russia, [Vladimir] Putin, whatever — and the diagnosis is of why they are doing what they are doing.

"The better the diagnosis when you arrive at it, the better the treatment."

"I'm always had good diagnosis," said Walesa. "That's the reason that I won [against communists]."

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Click Here Now.