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The European Commission decided on Wednesday to close the procedure under Article 7 of the EU Treaty against Poland. In the Commission’s opinion, there is no longer a clear breach of the rule of law in Poland.
“The Commission believes that there is no longer a clear breach of the rule of law in Poland, which is why it has withdrawn its reasoned proposal that initiated this procedure in 2017,” announced Eric Mamer, the spokesperson for the EC, after the commissioners’ meeting. This concerns the request that the Commission sent to member states in the EU Council in response to changes made in the judiciary seven years ago by the then Polish authorities. It was the EU Council that conducted proceedings against Poland, and since 2018 also against Hungary.
“Today, simply, the formalities of something that was announced earlier, especially last week, were completed,” emphasized Mamer, referring to the meeting of European Affairs Ministers on May 21.
Commission Vice-President Věra Jourová informed at that time about the Commission’s new, positive assessment of the state of the rule of law in Poland. The meeting was attended by Polish ministers: for European Affairs, Adam Szłapka, and for Justice, Adam Bodnar. The head of the Ministry of Justice reported on the implementation of his nine-point plan to reform the judiciary in Poland. This includes changes in the National Council of the Judiciary and the Constitutional Tribunal, as well as the separation of the positions of the Attorney General and the Minister of Justice. This plan, presented by Bodnar in Brussels in February, became the basis for the Commission’s change of assessment of the state of the rule of law in Poland.
Jourová admitted last week that the proceedings against Poland are ending, although “not all legislative acts have been fully adopted.” “But for me, it is important that we can say with full responsibility that we no longer see serious breaches of the rule of law in Poland because judges are no longer the targets of unfair disciplinary proceedings. Judges are not instructed on what decisions they can make, nor are they persecuted for their judgments,” she argued.
Bodnar reminded that the rule of law in Poland will continue to be monitored as part of the annual review of the state of the rule of law in the member states conducted by the EC (the report will be published in July). The issue of the Polish judiciary is also still the subject of cases in the Court of Justice of the EU in Luxembourg and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
The only country that raised objections to the closure of the procedure against Poland was Hungary. After the EC’s decision on Wednesday, Budapest will remain the only capital against which proceedings under Article 7 of the EU Treaty will continue. This procedure can lead to the suspension of some rights of a member state, such as the right to vote in the Council, but such sanctions require the unanimous consent of all other member states. This so-called nuclear option has not yet been used, and the proceedings conducted against both Poland and Hungary mainly consisted of organizing hearings. Both governments provided explanations at that time regarding the changes introduced, which raised EC’s concerns in light of EU law.
The Article 7 procedure was not the only tool the EC used in its dispute with Poland over the rule of law. The procedure itself quickly proved ineffective, one of the reasons being the lack of unanimity among the remaining EU countries regarding the use of the “nuclear option” against Poland. Brussels decided to block funds. The direct cause was the Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling from July 2022, which found EU law to be incompatible with the Polish constitution. The Commission then decided to block the disbursement of funds from the National Recovery Plan until the three conditions for judicial reform were met, known as milestones. Along with the NRP, funds for regional development from the cohesion policy were also frozen. They were unblocked after a year and a half in February this year.
The closure of the procedure under Article 7 symbolizes the end of the dispute over the state of the rule of law between Poland and the European Commission. (30.05.2024)