Parliament will start discussions this week on a bill to reform the Supreme Court in another attempt to convince the European Commission to unfreeze Poland’s EU recovery money.
The Commission has blocked funds worth €35.4 billion that Poland is due under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRP). To unblock the funds, Poland has been urged to address the rule of law issues, with Supreme Court reform being one of the major milestones.
“The draft (…) gives a solid basis to hope that it can terminate the unnecessary dispute,” said Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, as quoted by Business Insider.
The amendment bill is based on a compromise Polish EU Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sęk worked out with the Commission, he added.
Parliament’s lower chamber, the Sejm, will discuss the new draft on Wednesday, with the first reading scheduled for the morning, the Polish Press Agency reports. The amendment will probably be referred to the Sejm committee for further work, said ruling Law and Justice (PiS) MP Marek Ast, quoted by the same press agency.
EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders called the new draft “a promising step forward to achieve compliance with the commitments under the Polish Recovery and Resilience Plan.”
“With a view to the Commission’s future preliminary assessment under the RRP, it will be important that the final law as adopted raises the standards on judicial protection and judicial independence,” he tweeted on Saturday.
The draft, which the government said resulted from a compromise and takes into account the Commission’s requirements, was submitted to the Sejm in December.
But because President Andrzej Duda insisted he had not been consulted about the new draft, it was removed from the agenda.
The judicial reforms the ruling PiS adopted since it came to power in 2015 have become a bone of contention between Poland and the Commission, with the EU Court of Justice ruling that many went against the tenet of judicial independence.
The EU even went as far as to block the EU recovery funds Poland was entitled to, with the Commission presenting a set of milestones, which included the obligation to dismantle the PiS-founded Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court, which the CJEU ruled could serve as a means to punish judges critical of the government.
Last year, the executive put forward a law replacing the Disciplinary Chamber with the Chamber of Professional Responsibility – a step the Commission deemed insufficient.
(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | EURACTIV.pl)
Source: euractiv.com
