There are no more apparent violations of the regulation of law in Poland – the European Commission acknowledged. The EC spokesperson after the gathering of the Commissioners announced that the procedure initiated against Poland in 2017 was completed.
"The Commission considers that there is no longer a clear violation of the regulation of law in Poland and so has withdrawn its reasoned proposal which launched this procedure in 2017", announced Commissioner Eric Mamer after the meeting. This is about the Commission's proposal to the associate States in the Council of the EU in consequence to the changes made in the judiciary 7 years ago by the then Polish authorities. It was the EU Council that dealt with Poland and Hungary from 2018.
"Today, the formalities for what was announced earlier, especially last week, have simply been completed," said Mamer, referring to the gathering of the ministers of European affairs on 21 May.
EC Vice-President Viera Jourova then informed about the Commission's fresh affirmative assessment of the state of the regulation of law in Poland. The gathering was attended by Polish ministers: European Affairs Adam Szpiek and Justice Adam Bodnar. The head of MS reported on the implementation of his nine-point plan to improvement the justice strategy in Poland. It concerns, among others, changes to the National Judicial and Constitutional Court Board and the separation of positions of the lawyer General and Minister of Justice. This plan, presented by Bodnar in Brussels in February, became the basis for the revision of the EC's assessment of the regulation of law in Poland.
Jourova admitted last week that the proceedings against Poland were complete, although “not all legislative acts were full adopted”. "But it is crucial for me to say with full work that we no longer see serious violations of the regulation of law in Poland, due to the fact that judges are not the mark of unfair disciplinary proceedings. The judges are not taught what decisions they can make, nor are they persecuted for their judgments," she argued.
Bodnar recalled that the regulation of law in Poland will proceed to be monitored as part of an yearly review of the state of the regulation of law in the associate States of the EC (the study will be published in July). The issue of Polish justice is besides inactive the subject of cases in the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
The only country that raised objections to the conclusion of the procedure against Poland was Hungary. Following the Wednesday decision of the EC, Budapest will stay the only capital to be dealt with by Article 7 of the EU Treaty. This may lead to the suspension of any of the rights of the associate State, specified as the right to vote in the Council, but specified sanctions require the unanimous consent of all another associate States. This alleged atomic option has not been utilized so far, and the conduct to both Poland and Hungary consisted mainly of organizing hearings. At the time, both governments explained the changes that were being made, which raised doubts under EU law.
The handling of Article 7 was not the only tool that the EC sought in its dispute with Poland for the regulation of law. The procedure itself rapidly proved ineffective, and 1 of the reasons was the deficiency of unanimity among another EU countries on the usage of "nuclear option" towards Poland. Brussels so decided to block the funds. The direct origin was the judgement of the Constitutional Court of July 2022, which stated that EU law was incompatible with the Polish Constitution. The Commission then decided to block the payment of money from the National Recovery Plan until the 3 conditions for the recovery of the judiciary, known as milestones, were fulfilled. Together with the KPO, money was frozen for the improvement of regions with cohesion policy. They were successfully unlocked after a year and a half in February.
The closure of the procedure with Article 7 is simply a symbolic conclusion of the dispute over the state of the law between Poland and the European Commission.
Source: PAP 
Pache
