PLN 770 billion for Poland from EU funds is questionable. The CJEU judgment will be issued on Wednesday

The PLN 770 billion fund planned for Poland for the years 2021-2027 is questionable. The EU Court of Justice will decide on whether the money will go to the state budget.

A high price for the rule of law

In December 2020, all EU Member States adopted the rule that EU funds will be received only by those countries that respect the rule of law. Two countries – Poland and Hungary – lodged a complaint against this rule. In December last year, the advocate general of the CJEU stated that the complaints of the governments in Warsaw and Budapest were unfounded and should be dismissed.

Analyzing the arguments of both sides of the dispute – i.e. Poland and Hungary on the one hand, and the European Commission on the other – I expect that the Luxembourg tribunal will recognize the conditionality mechanism as fully compliant with the EU treaties.

–

Such a situation may mean that the money which Poland was to receive from the EU will be seriously endangered.

Wawrykiewicz: The lack of EU funds will be a civilization collapse for Poland

– If such a ruling by the CJEU is indeed the case, the mechanism can be initiated in just a few weeks – says attorney Wawrykiewicz for Onet. – The procedure is simple. The European Commission recognizes that a given country does not meet the standards of the rule of law – that is, it has neither an independent prosecutor’s office nor independent courts. In Poland, unfortunately, due to the “efforts” of the rulers, we are dealing with such a situation – he points out. Attorney Wawrykiewicz summed up that if the European Commission decides to withhold money from Poland, it will mean a terrible civilization collapse.

The Polish government will appeal against the CJEU’s decision?

The plenipotentiaries of the Polish government suggested that the provisions on which the European Commission is based contain numerous flaws and are an attempt to circumvent the ineffective rule of law procedure from Article 7 of the EU treaty.

“We have a lot of these accusations,” emphasized Bogusław Majczyna from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He said that the regulations were too general, unclear and open to interpretation. “The definition of the rule of law contained in this regulation is discretionary and leaves a great deal of scope for the European Commission to make these assessments quite freely” – he added.

The plenipotentiaries of the Polish government also emphasized that the EU conditionality mechanism does not fall within the scope of the legal basis, because the emphasis is on the assessment of compliance with the rule of law, and not on financial issues and budget protection.

Polish Constitutional Tribunal

In December last year, Zbigniew Ziobro, the Minister of Justice, the Public Prosecutor General, applied to the Constitutional Tribunal to declare the conditionality mechanism incompatible with the Polish constitution.

The hearing in the Constitutional Tribunal is also to be held on Wednesday, December 16, which is the same day when the Court of Justice of the European Union will announce its verdict.

The case will be dealt with by the full adjudicating panel of the Constitutional Tribunal (case no. K 1/22). The chairman of the Constitutional Tribunal will be Julia Przyłębska, and Stanisław Piotrowicz has been appointed judge-rapporteur. The hearing is scheduled to start at 9.00.