Brussels to approve recovery funds for Poland, media say

The European Commission is ready to approve the first payment for Poland from the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility, which could happen as soon as this week.

Shortly after it came to power, the new government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk requested a first installment of €6.3 billion from the nearly €60 billion earmarked for Poland under the Resilience and Recovery Fund.

The Commission’s positive decision “would be a boost for Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose coalition has promised to improve relations with European allies and end democratic backsliding,” Bloomberg reports.

The European Commission previously froze recovery funds for Poland due to concerns about the rule of law in the country under the previous nationalist Law and Justice (PiS, ECR) government.

The PiS government, which lost power in Poland to Tusk’s pro-EU camp last December, previously had strained relations with the Commission, mainly over controversial judicial reforms that the Commission and the EU Court of Justice said undermined the judiciary’s independence.

When Tusk came to power, he promised to restore Poland’s democratic order after the PiS. With the new government, “Poland’s strained relations with the EU will improve,” says Bloomberg.

In order to release the bailout money, the Commission has set a package of milestones that Poland must meet to ensure that the rule of law in Poland is not jeopardised. These include changes to the judicial system.

Eager to deliver, Poland’s Justice Minister Adam Bodnar presented other EU ministers with a package of draft bills to restore the rule of law in Poland earlier this week.

“I am very grateful to the member states for the trust,” Bodnar said after meeting the ministers. He added that the draft laws were “not to cut corners, but to try to obtain the broadest possible consensus (in Poland for the reforms)”.

The recovery funds for Poland are likely to be one of the topics of talks between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Tusk during her visit to Warsaw on Friday.

Asked by Euractiv for the visit’s agenda, the Commission’s press service said it was unfamiliar with the details but that issues relevant to both sides would be raised.

“There is every indication on Friday we will find out that after years of delay and weeks of extremely intense work (…), we will finally hear from representatives of European institutions that Poland has its recovery funds unblocked,” Tusk told the Polish parliament on Wednesday.

He accused the PiS of leaving behind “a quagmire of ill will, incompetence, anti-European phobias and decisions that have devastated the Polish justice system” after eight years in power.

The PiS, for its part, argues that it is Tusk’s broad ruling coalition that has dismantled the rule of law in Poland, including the illegal takeover of public media and the arrest of two former PiS ministers who were convicted of abuse of office, but who the PiS believes are innocent.

Tusk confirmed on Monday that his Civic Platform (PO, EPP) party would support von der Leyen’s bid to remain Commission president for the next term, a decision Euractiv understands may not be unrelated to the RRF funds issue.

(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | Euractiv.pl)