Warsaw
boils at Commission intervention
‘This
is a sad day for Polish democracy,’ Poland’s prime minister tells
parliament.
“Brussels
will never win this fight with Poland” — Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s
prime minister
By JAN CIENSKI
5/20/16, 2:20 PM CET Updated 5/20/16, 2:29 PM CET
WARSAW — The
European Commission’s unexpectedly tough line over Poland’s
constitutional crisis sparked a political firestorm in Warsaw Friday.
Frans Timmermans,
the Commission’s first vice president, has prepared a hard-hitting
opinion that will be sent to Warsaw on Monday unless the government
moves rapidly to defuse the standoff over the country’s top
constitutional court. Poland’s Rzeczpospolita newspaper got a look
at the opinion, which says democratic standards aren’t being
followed in Poland and that in the absence of a functioning
Constitutional Tribunal democracy and respect for fundamental rights
are in danger.
The opinion also
reminds Poland that it is a member of the EU and as such is committed
to the rule of law, Rzeczpospolita reported.
The hard-hitting
opinion provoked a defensive reaction from the governing right-wing
Law and Justice party.
“Brussels
will never win this fight with Poland” — Viktor Orbán,
Hungary’s prime minister
“Do you want Poles
to decide about Poland?” Prime Minister Beata Szydło said in a
fiery speech to the parliament on Friday morning that was frequently
interrupted by catcalls and yells from the opposition benches. “The
Polish government will subject itself only to the will of the Polish
people.”
Spreading the blame
Szydło blamed the
Constitutional Tribunal for the crisis, calling it “an institution
tangled up in politics,” and went on to say that “the EU makes
sense when a country is respected and is a partner. That’s the kind
of partnership we’re fighting for. It’s not Poland which has a
problem with the EC, it’s the EC which has the problem.”
The opposition went
on the attack, with one MP warning that Szydło faces possible
prosecution for not obeying a verdict issued by the Constitutional
Tribunal, while Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, leader of the opposition
Polish People’s Party, cautioned that the government was leading
the country to the brink of “civil war.”
The tribunal ruled
in March that a new law, rushed through parliament dramatically
changing the way the tribunal functions, violated the constitution.
However, Szydło’s office has refused to acknowledge that verdict,
and is also ignoring subsequent rulings issued by the tribunal.
President Andrzej
Duda, allied to Law and Justice (PiS), has refused to swear in three
tribunal justices elected by the previous parliament — another
issue highlighted by the Commission as problematic.
The fight over the
tribunal has united the fractious opposition, still reeling from the
overwhelming defeat it suffered at the hands of PiS in October. It
has also brought tens of thousands of anti-government protesters onto
the streets, and tainted Poland’s international image.
PiS has long been
suspicious of the tribunal — which rules on the constitutionality
of laws passed by parliament — blaming it for blocking some of its
initiatives during its previous 2005-2007 stint in power.
Brussels moves
The Commission
launched an unprecedented rule of law procedure against Poland in
January, and since then has been conducting talks with the
government.
Despite being given
five months, the government hasn’t moved decisively to end the
crisis. Jarosław Kaczyński, the PiS leader and Poland’s most
powerful politician, has suggested compromises that include rewriting
the constitution and finding roundabout procedures to seat the
unrecognized justices, but those ideas haven’t found favor with the
opposition.
The worry is that
the government is simply playing for time while it waits until the
end of the year, when the term of Andrzej Rzepliński, the tribunal’s
chief justice, expires. That would allow the government to choose a
new tribunal president more to its liking, ending the crisis on its
own terms.
The Commission has
evidently lost patience with Warsaw. Earlier this week, Timmermans
was authorized by his fellow commissioners to send the opinion to
Warsaw on Monday unless there is a resolution.
There’s no chance
of that happening.
“The Monday
deadline is an unachievable deadline,” government spokesman Rafał
Bochenek told reporters.
If Timmermans sends
the opinion, Warsaw then has two weeks to respond.
If the Commission
doesn’t find that answer satisfactory, it can issue a “rule of
law recommendation,” identifying the problem and giving Poland a
fixed amount of time to resolve it.
The Commission then
monitors follow-up. If that still doesn’t work, the Commission, the
European Parliament or 10 member countries could launch an “Article
7 procedure,” which first issues a formal warning and then could
impose sanctions and suspend a country’s EU voting rights.
That would have to
be backed by all 27 other EU countries, and Hungary, which has its
own problems with the Commission, has made clear it will defend its
Polish ally.
“In Brussels they
can think that they’re big boys, but Brussels will never win this
fight with Poland,” Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, told
Hungarian radio on Friday.
Authors:
Jan Cienski
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