BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union leaders will sort out their Polish counterpart on Thursday over a court docket ruling that questioned the primacy of European legal guidelines in a pointy escalation of battles that threat precipitating a brand new disaster for the bloc.
The French president and the Dutch premier are notably eager to forestall their governments’ money contributions to the EU from benefitting socially conservative politicians undercutting human rights mounted within the legal guidelines of western liberal democracies.
“EU states that violate the rule of legislation mustn’t obtain EU funds,” the top of the European Union parliament, David Sassoli, mentioned earlier than nationwide leaders of the bloc’s 27 member nations convened in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.
“The European Union is a group constructed on the rules of democracy and the rule of legislation. If these are underneath risk in a member state, the EU should act to guard them.”
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki is ready to defend the Oct. 7 ruling by Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal stating that components of EU legislation had been incompatible with the nation’s structure.
“It is a main drawback and a problem for the European mission,” a French official mentioned of the Polish ruling.
Morawiecki has already got here underneath hearth from EU lawmakers this week and the top of the Fee mentioned the problem to the unity of the European authorized order wouldn’t go unanswered.
This, in addition to different insurance policies launched by his ruling Legislation and Justice (PiS) occasion are set to value Poland cash.
“NOT TENABLE”
With the ruling, the PiS raised the stakes in years of more and more bitter feuds with the EU over democratic rules from the liberty of courts and media to the rights of girls, migrants and LGBT individuals.
A senior EU diplomat mentioned such insurance policies had been “not tenable within the European Union.”
The Fee has for now barred Warsaw from tapping into 57 billion euros ($66 billion) of emergency funds to assist its economic system emerge from the COVID pandemic. Warsaw additionally dangers dropping different EU handouts, in addition to penalties from the bloc’s prime court docket.
Sweden, Finland and Luxembourg are additionally amongst these decided to convey Warsaw into line and have stepped up their criticism since PiS got here to energy in 2015.
The fast penalties to Poland – with some 38 million individuals, the largest ex-communist EU nation – are monetary.
However for the EU, the newest twist in feuds with the eurosceptic PiS additionally comes at a delicate time because it grapples with the fallout from Brexit.
The bloc – with out Britain – final yr achieved a serious leap in integration in agreeing joint debt ensures to boost 750 billion euros for COVID financial restoration, overcoming stiff resistance from rich states just like the Netherlands.
Whereas most EU states share a forex, extra fiscal coordination can solely maintain if the wealthy ones donating greater than they recuperate from the bloc are certain their taxes don’t find yourself financing politicians flouting their core liberal values.
Morawiecki has dismissed the concept of leaving the EU in a “Polexit”. Help for membership stays very excessive in Poland, which has benefitted enormously from funding coming from the bloc it joined in 2004.
Talking on Wednesday, a senior Polish diplomat struck a conciliatory tone, saying the Polish tribunal didn’t problem EU legal guidelines however specific interpretations of a few of them.
Warsaw – backed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban – needs to return powers to nationwide capitals and has lashed out at what it says are extreme powers held by the Fee.
Whereas many have grown more and more pissed off at failed makes an attempt to persuade Warsaw to vary tack, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has lengthy warned in opposition to isolating Poland.
Her sway, nevertheless, is weakened as she visits Brussels for her final scheduled summit earlier than she is because of hand over to a brand new German chancellor after 16 years.
Past placing stress on Poland, the leaders can even lock horns over how to reply to a pointy spike in vitality costs, focus on migration, their fraught relationship with Belarus and the COVID-19 pandemic.
($1 = 0.8584 euros)
(Extra reporting by Michel Rose, Andreas Rinke, Sabine Siebold; writing by Gabriela Baczynska; modifying by Richard Pullin)
