Split in Polish government after ECJ ruling on “rule of law” mechanism

Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro blames PM Mateusz Morawiecki for making a very serious mistake in accepting the conditionality mechanism.

Split in Polish government after ECJ ruling on “rule of law” mechanism

but, above all, that those violations undermine or present a serious risk of undermining, in a sufficiently direct manner, the sound financial management of the Union’s budget or the protection of its financial interests”.

It was in exchange for such an assurance, confirmed by a declaration of the EU-27 at the December 2020 European Council, that the Polish and Hungarian prime ministers agreed to lift their vetoes for the adoption of the EU’s 2021–27 multi-annual budget and NextGenerationEU recovery plan.

However, even before the ECJ validated this mechanism by dismissing Poland and Hungary’s case, the Commission had already started using it to demand that Poland reverse its reforms of the judiciary and Hungary repeal its June 2021 law that banned LGBT propaganda to minors. In the case of Poland, the Commission argues that the lack of independence of the judiciary (in the eyes of the Commission) does not allow adequate supervision of the use of the NextGenerationEU funds, even though Poland is among the EU’s best performers in terms of transparent and compliant use of EU funds and the fight against corruption. The other reason given by the Commission for withholding the NextGenerationEU funds for Poland is the October judgment of the Polish Constitutional Court, which affirmed the primacy of the Polish Constitution over the judgments of the ECJ in areas where the treaties have not transferred competences to the EU (in this case, the organisation of the judiciary). In the case of Hungary, the Commission officially gives reasons related to corruption problems that have not been resolved by Budapest, while unofficially letting it be known that it is the law on the protection of minors that is really the problem.

In fact, the Commission now has a powerful instrument of blackmail to push forward European integration without a new treaty.

Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro was infuriated by the ECJ’s ruling and went on the attack again against Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who enjoys the full support of Law and Justice (PiS) chairman Jarosław Kaczyński. As soon as the ECJ ruling was published on Wednesday, Ziobro called a press conference where he spoke of a “very serious mistake”, a “historic political mistake by Prime Minister Morawiecki, who gave his approval at the Brussels summit in 2020 to the adoption of a regulation that serves to blackmail Poland economically and deprive us of our sovereignty, if only in the field of justice or values”. And the minister stressed that such blackmail is already being exercised on Polish local governments that have passed resolutions on family rights and against the spread of LGBT ideology in schools.

“It is, in a way, a historic date. A dark date that will be remembered and written in the history books. But this is not the end of the battle for Poland’s freedom in the European Union and for a free European Union”,

the leader of Solidarna Polska added.