Donald Tusk flew to Brussels regarding the KPO. But it has one big problem

Donald Tusk announced during the election campaign that right after taking power from PiS, he would go to Brussels to unblock KPO funds for Poland. This amounts to a considerable total amount of EUR 57 billion. However, as “Rzeczpospolita” reports, the PO leader will have a big problem. It’s about the calendar.

“Milestones”

If President Andrzej Duda entrusts the mission of forming a government to a PiS politician, it will significantly delay the current opposition’s coming to power and presenting its ideas regarding the KPO. “It’s not just about a possible delay of several weeks, but also about missing key dates in the EC’s decision-making process,” he writes. The condition for the payment of the first tranche of EU funds is the fulfillment of the so-called milestones, and one of the most important among them is the reform of the judges’ disciplinary system. One of the requirements of the reform was the liquidation of the Disciplinary Chamber, and this was done. The problem is with two other requirements, i.e. restoring judges previously punished by the Disciplinary Chamber to adjudicating and not punishing judges who refer directly to EU law in their judgments. “These last two conditions are included in the amendment to the act that President Duda sent to the Constitutional Tribunal and got stuck there. The new government will therefore have to achieve the same goal – reform of the judges’ disciplining system – in a different way,” we read in “Rzeczpospolita”.

November 21 – deadline

This could be achieved if the new government reached an agreement with the European Commission on changing the “milestones”. This is possible based on the EU regulation that appeared when updating the KPO, because the PiS government applied for additional loans under the program. However, the obstacle in this puzzle is the date of November 21, because by that date the European Commission must issue a recommendation regarding the “decision on the extended loan program”. Therefore, if the National Reconstruction Plan is not changed by November 21, it will be much more difficult later.

Billions of euros from KPO

Meanwhile, time for the entire KPO program is running out, because all investments financed from the EU Reconstruction Fund must be completed and settled by August 31, 2026. And we are talking about a lot of money – about EUR 22.5 billion in subsidies and EUR 34.5 billion in loans. At least this is what Morawiecki’s government requested at the end of August, thus modifying the previous KPO plan (over EUR 23.8 billion in non-repayable grants and approximately EUR 11.5 billion in cheap loans). If this new one is approved, adding approximately PLN 2.76 billion of subsidies from the REPowerEU program (to finance additional energy investments) gives nearly EUR 60 billion, which is currently approximately PLN 266 billion – writes Mikołaj Fidziński. .

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