Poland and Commission plan crisis talks

Warsaw warns it could challenge the Brussels rule of law probe in the EU’s highest court.

Frans Timmermans, the European Commission’s first vice president, plans telephone talks with Poland’s Prime Minister Beata Szydło on Tuesday in an effort to resolve a standoff between Brussels and Warsaw over the country’s constitutional crisis, an EU source told POLITICO.

The discussions will be held ahead of a weekly meeting of all 28 European commissioners on Wednesday, when the Commission could again raise the issue of whether to send an opinion assessing whether Poland’s right-wing government is failing to meet the EU’s democratic standards.

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The Commission was supposed to send its opinion a week ago, but held back after a furious reaction from Warsaw. As Brussels has considered its options on how to bring the Polish government into line, leaders in Poland have maintained a defiant position.

If the Commission continues to press its unprecedented rule of law procedure against Poland, the country could issue a challenge to the European Court of Justice “at any time,” warned Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the ruling Law and Justice party and Poland’s most powerful politician, adding that the inquiry was “dreamed up” and went beyond what is allowed by EU treaties.

“If it gets rough then we’ll do it,” he said in an interview with the Do Rzeczy weekly.

Compromise suggestions

In the interview, Kaczyński spelled out some ideas for ending the six-month crisis over the country’s top constitutional court, but his terms are significantly different from what the Commission, other international bodies, and the country’s opposition parties have demanded.

Law and Justice refused to recognize three justices elected to the 15-member court by the last parliament. It also passed a law dramatically reshaping the way the tribunal works. When the tribunal ruled those changes broke Poland’s constitution, the government refused to honor the verdict.

The Commission has expressed concern that the tribunal is being prevented from functioning, and the Venice Commission, a legal body of the Council of Europe, called for the three justices to be sworn in and for the verdict to be officially published by the government.

In the interview, Kaczyński insisted the tribunal had no right to overturn the law regulating its procedures. However, he did say that the three disputed judges could be brought onto the court as future vacancies appear. He was also open to discussing controversial procedural changes, such as the new requirement that verdicts need a two-thirds majority to be valid.

Kaczyński has long been suspicious of the tribunal, worrying it could hamper his efforts to deeply revise Polish society and politics after his party’s sweeping electoral victories last year.

He said the government would be willing to formally publish the tribunal’s verdict, something Szydło has refused to do, but would still not consider the verdict to be binding. Publishing it, he said, would be a “historical gesture” aimed at placating Brussels to “allow the Commission to take note of it.”

It’s not clear whether those steps will be enough to dissuade Timmermans and the rest of the commissioners from issuing the opinion on Poland’s respect for democratic procedures.

Poland’s Rzeczpospolita newspaper reported that the opinion 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.

Talks but no breakthrough

Timmermans met with Szydło in Warsaw last week, and the two later held a joint press conference but did not delve into the specifics of what Warsaw would have to do to end the Commission’s probe.

According to sources with knowledge of the conversation, the meeting between Timmermans and Szydło was more defensive than cordial, with Szydło striking a generally Euroskeptic tone.

The Commission is trying to end the standoff without alienating Poland, the bloc’s sixth-largest member. That’s why it held back from issuing its opinion last week.

The opinion is one step in a long-running procedure that could potentially end with Poland losing its EU voting rights. However, such a decision has to be unanimous, and Hungary, also in trouble with the Commission over its adherence to democratic principles, has said it would defend its Polish allies.

“It demands unanimity, and there will be no unanimity,” Kaczyński said in the interview, adding that Poland would be backed by “not only Hungary,” however he refused to name which other countries would support Warsaw.

Outside of the improbable Article 7 procedure stripping Poland of its vote, the Commission has few instruments at its disposal to bring Warsaw to heel.

During last week’s meeting with activists from Poland’s Committee for the Defense of Democracy, which has organized large anti-government street protests in recent months, Timmermans said the Commission could propose significantly increasing financing for civil society groups, according to a source with knowledge of the talks.

“Timmermans said with great sadness that he never imagined we would need to protect democracy inside the EU,” a Polish source said.