The European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) adopted, on Thursday 16 July, by 52 votes to 15 (no abstentions), the interim report by its Chair, Juan Fernando López Aguilar (S&D), on establishing a clear risk of violation of fundamental EU values in Poland.
The report, which relates to the first phase of Article 7 of the EU Treaty triggered by the European Commission at the end of 2017, points to “the continuing deterioration of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights in Poland” and lists a whole range of “evidence” in this respect, which the European Parliament describes as “overwhelming”.
The Spanish rapporteur therefore calls on the EU Council to move on to the next stage of the Article 7 procedure, which is only in its initial phase, i.e. the phase of hearings possibly justifying the move to a vote to establish the clear risk of violation.
The report adopted on Thursday and briefly debated on Monday evening in the LIBE Committee (see EUROPE 12527/24) therefore calls on the Council to resume work, as the German Presidency has already suggested by envisaging a hearing of Poland and Hungary at the General Affairs Council next December. The Parliament also wants the Council of the EU to have a much wider scope of values covered by the Article 7 procedure than at present, the current procedure being mainly aimed at the judicial reforms undertaken since 2015 by the PiS.
The Civil Liberties Committee therefore wants the EU Council to take up in its work on Article 7 the core values defined in Article 2 of the EU Treaty and also include sexual and reproductive rights or the rights of LGBTI people as a field of work.
Compromise amendments adopted also stressed the need for continued EU funding for Polish civil society actors fighting against certain government decisions.
The report lists all the malfunctions observed by international institutions in Poland, whether in the judicial system, in the reform aimed at launching disciplinary proceedings against judges or in the electoral system, the report referring here to the recent controversy surrounding the maintenance of the presidential election in the midst of a pandemic.
Restrictions on NGOs or other civil society actors are also mentioned, notably in chapters on freedom of association or demonstration.
Stressing that the last hearing in the EU Council took place in December 2018, the text therefore urges the Council “to finally act (...) by finding that there is a manifest risk of a serious breach by the Republic of Poland of the values referred to in Article 2 of the EU Treaty, in the light of the overwhelming evidence provided in this resolution”.
This would require a 4/5 majority vote. Unanimity then becomes the rule for the next stage, which consists of gradually moving on to the definition of sanctions.
Link to the report: https://bit.ly/2OC1Bvv (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)