The first Vice-President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, still has no "positive developments" to report to MEPs on the situation of the rule of law in Poland and the evolution of the Article 7 procedure launched in December 2017 against Warsaw.
The European leader and 'Spitzenkandidat' of the Party of European Socialists participated, on Tuesday 20 November, in a hearing of the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) on the subject, and the chairman of this committee, British Social Democrat Claude Moraes, was also not very satisfied.
The hearing followed a visit by a delegation from the LIBE Committee, led by Moraes, to Poland in September. It will be used in a report in early December, but the deputies were unable to meet the Minister of Justice, Zbigniew Ziobro.
He was also invited to take part in the hearing on 20 November but declined. Mr Moraes did not appreciate this move, as the Polish government did not send any other representatives.
Claude Moraes recalled on that occasion that he continued to have concerns about respect for key principles such as the separation of powers, but also about not letting women enforce their sexual and reproductive health rights. The climate for the media and NGOs also continues to deteriorate, he said.
The First Vice-President of the Commission continued in this vein, claiming that to date, none of the concerns raised by the Commission in its various recommendations had been satisfactorily resolved. The Supreme Court Act, which had been the subject of a preliminary measure by the EU Court of Justice in mid-October (see EUROPE 12121), continued to be implemented even after the Commission had referred the matter to the Court. Judges have nevertheless been able to resume their functions pending the final verdict of the European judges, expected next February, but, according to Frans Timmermans, the Polish government is trying to legitimise these retirements through electoral amendments.
Frans Timmermans also mentioned the investigations that would be opened in the judicial hierarchy against judges who have publicly expressed their opposition to these judicial reforms.
To sum up, the European official considers that the systemic risk to the rule of law remains "very real". He was supported in this respect by the MEPs who were there in September, such as Frank Engels (EPP, Luxembourg) who expressed surprise at the lack of willingness to engage in dialogue and the unfriendly atmosphere surrounding this visit.
Barbara Spinelli (GUE/NGL, Italy) described a much broader problem, a problem of society, with, for example, an increasingly powerful Catholic Church. For Sophie in't Veld (ALDE, Netherlands), the government simply "destroys justice, the rule of law and all other values".
These stances did not, of course, please everyone, especially for the Polish side close to the ruling PiS party, who insisted that reforms were in the interest of citizens in order to protect them from "criminals", as Marek Jurek (ECR) pointed out. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)