Insults fly after EU ultimatum to Poland
The Polish government has accused the European Commission of “arrogance” and of “playing God” in a dispute on judicial reform.
Wednesday’s (26 July) barrage of reactions came after the Commission, earlier the same day, gave Poland one month to address concerns on political interference in the judiciary amid threats of an unprecedented EU voting penalty.
Join EUobserver today
Get the EU news that really matters
Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.
Choose your plan
... or subscribe as a group
Already a member?
Zbigniew Ziobro, the Polish justice minister, said Frans Timmermans, the Dutch commissioner who delivered the ultimatum, had behaved with “insolence and arrogance” toward Poland and Polish people.
“Poland deserves respect and that's what we'll demand from you [Timmermans] and your colleagues”, he told a press briefing in the Polish parliament in Warsaw.
He said his ruling Law and Justice party needed to overhaul Polish courts to stamp out corruption and maladministration.
“Our task is to reform the judiciary in Poland. We will do it in a democratic way and no one will stop us,” he said.
Konrad Szymanski, Poland’s EU affairs minister, said Timmermans’ concerns were “groundless” and that “organisation of the judicial sphere is a national competence”.
The ministers’ reactions were among the more polite ones.
Rafal Bochenek, a Polish government spokesman, told Pap, the Polish press agency: “We won’t accept any blackmail on the part of EU officials, especially if it's not based on facts.”
Ryszard Legutko, a Law and Justice MEP, accused Timmermans of “Brezhnevism”, comparing the EU Commission to the Soviet Union under its Cold War leader Leonid Brezhnev.
“The European Commission is trying to play God,” he said.
Another Law and Justice MEP, Zbigniew Kuzmiuk, said the Commission’s threat - to potentially suspend Poland’s voting rights in the EU Council - was an “atomic weapon”.
“This attempt to deprive Poland of its voice in the EU Council is a brutal interference in the Polish political system,” he said.
The Commission issued its warning after Law and Justice passed four laws on judicial reform.
One gave it the power to appoint supreme court judges. A second one gave it new powers over the National Council of the Judiciary which controls the profession.
These two laws are up in the air after Polish president Andrzej Duda declined to sign them.
The third and fourth laws, which Duda has signed, gave Law and Justice the power to name the presidents of appeals and district courts and to appoint assistant judges in the National School of Judiciary and Public Prosecution.
Widening division
Poland also on Wednesday got a separate Commission ultimatum to start taking in asylum seekers from Greece and Italy within one month or face legal action.
The relocation quotas were imposed by an EU Council vote, but Poland has declined to respect that amid widening divisions between Brussels and Warsaw.
The Commission had earlier voiced concerns over Law and Justice’s takeover of Poland’s constitutional tribunal and state media.
The Polish government's poor relations with EU institutions include the European Council, whose president, former Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, is a nemesis of Law and Justice party chief Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
Kaczynski has accused Tusk of colluding with Russia over the Smolensk air disaster in 2010 in which Lech Kaczynski, his twin brother and the then Polish president, lost his life.
Roman Giertych, a Tusk plenipotentiary, told Polish TV on Wednesday that Polish prosecutors had summoned the European Council president to answer further questions in a Smolensk probe in Warsaw in August as the vendetta goes on.
Site Section
Related stories
- EU Commission sets red lines for Poland on Article 7
- Orban vows to defend Poland from EU's 'inquisition'
- Polish president's veto leaves uncertainties over next move
- Poland's 'July coup' and what it means for the judiciary
- Poland belittles EU action on judicial reform
- Poland rejects 'groundless' EU complaint