Strasbourg, 04/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament decided in Strasbourg on Monday 4 July that the plenary session debate on the situation in Poland should be postponed until September.
At the Conference of the Presidents of the Parliament's political groups on Thursday 1 July, it was decided to postpone until September the initially scheduled debate on Poland within the framework of the rule of law mechanism (see EUROPE 11563). The GUE/NGL and S&D Groups, however, returned to the issue at the opening of the plenary session to call for statements from the Council and the European Commission on recent developments in Poland and their impact on fundamental rights to be put on the agenda for Tuesday 5 July. Parliament ultimately backed the compromise proposed Guy Verhofstadt (ALDE, Belgium) that a decision be taken that the debate should be held at the September plenary session. “It's a bit too easy to say that we can't speak about Poland. But it has to be the right time to speak about it. The Commission procedure is underway. I propose that a decision be taken now to include this item on the agenda of the September plenary. The Commission will have completed its work by then”, argued ALDE leader Verhofstadt.
Ryszard Czarnecki (ECR, Poland) said that nothing was happening in Poland at the moment and that a debate would be “counter-productive”, particularly following the referendum held in the United Kingdom.
On 13 April, Parliament adopted a resolution on the constitutional crisis in Poland (see EUROPE 11531).
Elsewhere, Parliament decided to add a debate with Federica Mogherini on Wednesday on the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)