Strasbourg, 19/01/2016 (Agence Europe) - In Strasbourg on Thursday 19 January, Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo attempted to explain her government's reasoning with its controversial reforms of the constitutional court and the public media, at a plenary session debate of the European Parliament. At the same time, however, she called upon the Europeans to allow the Polish to sort their own problems out.
This debate came one week after the European Commission decided to trigger the rule of law mechanism (see EUROPE 11467). Speaking before the members of the European Parliament, Szydlo began by stressing that her government was legitimate and the result of the expression of the Polish electorate. It was they who wanted the changes “proposed by our political family”, she stressed. She said that her government did not intend to turn its back on values such as “justice, liberty and subsidiarity” - values which, she added, her country has fought for years to defend. She also emphasised the fact that Poland wished to remain a full member of the Union. “Poland is part of this united Europe in the same way as all other countries”, she said.
Stating that she was saddened by the criticism of her government, Szydlo nonetheless said that she hoped that this criticism was in fact based on “a lack of information”, but she is not ruling out the possibility that this criticism also testifies to “bad faith”. She said that all of the legislative changes that have been introduced recently were brought in to line Poland up more with European standards and to put the country on an equal footing with the other member states of the EU. More specifically, on the reform of the constitutional court, she said that the changes “comply with European standards and values and are no different from the standards in place elsewhere in the EU”.
She explained that the way this court operates had to be changed because the action of the previous government on the appointment of judges was deemed to be non-compliant with the constitution on 3 December 2015. The former coalition in power had appointed 14 of the 15 judges, she said. Her decisions therefore aimed only to re-establish a more balanced political representation within the court, as per the recommendations of the Venice Commission of the Council of the Europe, she added. “This is what we have done”, she told the MEPs. Her political party, Law and Justice (PiS), “never wanted to dominate the court”, she said. However, she warned that the debate on this reform “is an internal debate” and that the EU must now “allow us to resolve our problems by ourselves”.
On the reform of the public media, she explained that the changes sought above all to re-establish the principle of impartiality and to move towards greater neutrality. She stressed that the government had the support of Polish professional journalists on the matter.
Prior to the explanations of the Polish prime minister, Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders reminded the participants that his country has been one of the first to call for the creation of the rule of law mechanism. Declining to pass judgement on Poland, he stressed the essential need to maintain the values to uphold the rule of law of Europe and that, although no country had a monopoly on either virtue or vice, the strength of democracy was to “debate all shortcomings, recognise them and resolve them”.
First Vice President of the European Commission Frans Timmermans took pains to point out that the European Commission was acting preventatively, in a procedure which was in its infancy. This does not mean “that we will be taking action”, he said.
During the debate which followed, the EPP Group stressed that membership of the EU was based on “values, and then on the market”, rather than the other way round, as Spanish MEP Esteban González Pons said. It is worth noting that Manfred Weber declined to take the floor, on the grounds of possible mixed messages due to his German nationality.
The S&D Group said that Poland was “one of the pillars of the EU”, in the words of Italian MEP Gianni Pittella, and that the EU was “not a marriage of convenience”, but a “community of values, liberty and democracy”.
Guy Verhofstadt from the ALDE Group expressed his view that the current Polish government is moving towards the Poland of the “Vladimir Putin” regime. A number of ALDE members, plus members of the Greens/EFA Group, voiced concerns regarding the situation in other member states, referring to France and its legislative projects regarding the state of emergency.
Syed Kamall from the UK and leader of the ECR Group, of which the party PiS is a member, said that the EU needed to focus more on other issues, such as immigration, the eurozone and growth. Slightly earlier that day, he also spoke out against “double standards” and suggested that the political opponents of PiS were using “Brussels” to get their message across.
Warsaw provides Commission with detailed response. In a letter dated Tuesday 19 January Poland's Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro supplied an initial response to the request from Timmermans, which he had made on 13 January as part of triggering the rule of law mechanism. Putting forward the same type of argument as Szydlo used in Strasbourg, Ziobro said that the reforms regarding the constitutional court aimed to re-establish a political balance in that institution. He also rejected the accusations made by the Commission on the failure to respect two specific judgments of the court on the appointment of judges. He said that only the parliament is authorised to appoint these judges and the court has no right of scrutiny over this prerogative. As regards changes in the functioning procedure of the court (cases to be dealt with in chronological order and the judges will, in most cases, all have to sit), he said that the reform aimed solely to increase the efficiency of the court's work and make it more respectful towards the requesting parties. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic and Jan Kordys)