Warsaw, Poland — Poland’s right-wing government must show it has met all democratic requirements before tens of billions of euros in European Union development funds can flow, a senior EU official said on Tuesday.
The right-wing government that came to power in 2015 is increasingly challenging many European regulations as well as the leading role of the 27-member bloc in the judiciary and legislative system, as well as in some areas of social life.
Vera Jourova, the European Commission’s deputy for values and transparency, said negotiations are still ongoing with Poland over the payment of 75 billion euros ($73 billion) from the cohesion fund.
She said Poland’s new minister for EU relations must reassure Brussels that the recalcitrant government is keeping its promises made this year to respect certain “steps”, align its judicial policies and guarantee independence. judicial.
“We don’t want to see the country of such importance, such size, the Polish people being left without EU support,” Jourova said in Brussels.
Amid a long stalemate with Brussels over the rule of law and the judiciary, Warsaw replaced its EU relations minister last week, appointing Deputy Foreign Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sek to the post. .
The 27-member EU is highly critical of the changes the Polish government has introduced to the country’s judicial system as it tries to take control of the courts. Brussels has already frozen the payment of much-needed billions of euros from its pandemic recovery fund for Poland. The freezing of cohesion funds, which reimburse investments in infrastructure, would only aggravate Poland’s difficult situation.
Jourova suggested that there might be “a greater lack of political will” in Warsaw, but that she hoped “the Polish situation would progress well”.
In Poland, opposition figures warn that it would be disastrous for the country if cohesion funds were also withheld.
Former Prime Minister and ex-EU leader Donald Tusk has blamed the threat to disbursements on the infighting between the main leader of Poland’s Law and Justice Party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and Justice Minister and author of the controversial judicial policies, Zbigniew Ziobro, who leads a small party within the ruling coalition.
“They are at loggerheads and we are all paying for it, and the costs are hundreds of billions of euros,” said Tusk, now leader of the main opposition Civic Platform.
Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski said “the situation is getting very serious” and could prove catastrophic for local governments. Poland could lose funds worth around 530 billion zlotys ($107 billion), the capital’s budget for 25 years.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki denied that Poland’s cohesion funds had been threatened and insisted that Poland had not yet made any claims against them. Seeking to end the stalemate over pandemic stimulus funds, Morawiecki agreed to lift political scrutiny of the judiciary, but the EU says the promises have yet to be fulfilled.
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This story corrects the spelling of the EU official’s last name to Jourova.
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