The European Commission has launched unprecedented disciplinary proceedings against Poland over its highly controversial judicial reforms which Brussels says threaten the rule of law.
In a major escalation against one of the EU’s biggest states, Brussels triggered article seven of the EU treaty over what it sees as “systemic threats” to the independence of the Polish judiciary from the nation’s right-wing government.
Never before used against an EU member state, the proceedings can eventually lead to the “nuclear option” of the suspension of a country’s voting rights within the bloc.
But just hours after the announcement, a defiant Polish president went ahead and signed the reforms into law and accused the bloc of “lying” about the reforms.
The row underlines growing east-west tensions within the European Union, with former Soviet bloc states like Poland and Hungary refusing to toe the Brussels line on several thorny issues including judicial and media independence as well as immigration.
“It is with a heavy heart that we have decided to initiate Article 7.1. But the facts leave us with no choice,” Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans told reporters.
The Dutch commissioner said 13 laws adopted by Poland in the space of two years had created a situation where the government “can systematically politically interfere with the composition, powers, the administration and the functioning” of judicial authorities.
But Timmermans gave Warsaw three months to remedy the situation, saying Brussels could withdraw the measures if it did.
European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said on Twitter it was “a difficult day for Poland, but also for the EU” and said he would meet Poland’s new Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki early next month.
EU President Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister and archrival of the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party, urged Warsaw to “come to its senses” and “not seek a conflict at all cost in a case where it is simply not right.”
Poland’s right-wing PiS government began making changes to the judiciary after coming to power in late 2015 and says the reforms are needed to combat corruption and overhaul the judicial system still haunted by the communist era.
Brussels has repeatedly warned that it views the changes as a threat to the democratic principles and rule of law Poland signed up to when it joined the EU.
President Andrzej Duda later said he had decided to sign into law reforms to the Supreme Court and the National Council of the Judiciary pushed through parliament this month by the PiS government.
Duda defended the constitutionality of his moves insisting that in the “United States the president chooses Supreme Court judges, while the Senate gives its opinion; judges’ circles have no say in the matter.”