More than $36 billion in COVID-19 grants and loans have been suspended due to disputes
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland could simply retaliate against the European Union if it doesn’t pay its share of the recovery budget in the event of a pandemic, ruling party politicians said after Brussels signaled it’s not satisfied with Warsaw’s latest judicial reforms.
More than 35 billion euros ($36 billion) in COVID-19 grants and stimulus loans have been suspended due to a dispute over reforms to Poland’s judicial formula that the EU says are overturning democratic norms.
In June, the European Commission (EC) approved the budget for Poland, but its leader, Ursula von der Leyen, said more work needed to be done on the rule of law on a visit, when she met with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
However, the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party said its landmark reforms were aimed at making the formula more so and denied any interference in the courts for political purposes.
“If there is an attempt to block the payment . . . and the European Commission wants to pressure us, so we still have no option to take all the weapons out of our arsenal and respond with barrages,” Krzysztof Sobolewski told Polish public radio.
However, the PiS did not specify what moves it considers.
Poland passed a law in May that replaced a contentious disciplinary chamber for judges with a new body, and on Tuesday the Supreme Court decided on candidates for the new chamber from among its judges.
But von der Leyen said in an interview in late July that the new law did not give judges the right to judicial appointments without facing disciplinary proceedings, a challenge that would have to be resolved in order to offload EU funds.
Commission spokeswoman Arianna Podesta said the new law is an important step, but the EU’s initial assessment that it did not allow judgments to be made to challenge the prestige of another opinion without risking disciplinary proceedings.
“This queryArray. . . will need to be resolved to ensure that recovery and resilience plan commitments are reliableArray. . . No official assessment has been made as so far no payment request has been made through Poland,” Podesta said in an instruction.
Warsaw’s refusal to comply with EU rule of law requirements has fueled complaints from opposition politicians that PiS will likely try to pull Poland out of the bloc, which the government denies.
(Information through Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Anna Koper and Pawel Florkiewicz; Editing via David Holmes)