These funds are part of the recovery plan that was blocked due to attacks on the rule of law in Poland.
Brussels releases part of the recovery fund intended for Warsaw!
The Commission required the restoration of the rule of law in Poland, mistreated in recent years by the PIS government. The reforms of the former ruling party had notably harmed the independence of the judiciary, by blurring the boundary with politics.
The new liberal majority wants to reverse these changes. Judge Lukasz Mrozek believes that the European institutions have finally understood the seriousness of the situation: “since 2019-2020, they have realized the importance of the problem and now we feel their support. There are steps, which were in fact negotiated by the PIS government, and most of them concern repairing the damage done to justice. We have worked on five bills that go in this direction.”
Among the steps towards a return to the rule of law is thedepoliticization of the National Council of the Judiciary. Parliament has already designated new representatives to sit on it and assures that it will keep an eye on the members already on the Council, appointed by the political power and not by judges, as was the case before the PIS reforms.
But if the Commission requests the release of the money, the conservatives criticize the withholding of the sums by Brussels, until now. The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pawel Jablonski, even believes that the blocking did not comply with European law : “We have long said that the reasons these funds were withheld are not legal but political. We welcome any decision that comes back to be legal, namely that Poland must receive this money.“