On Tuesday 7 September, the Commission took two decisions on its disputes with Poland concerning the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary. Firstly, it decided to ask the EU Court of Justice to impose daily penalty payments on the country because of Warsaw’s failure to comply with the Court’s order of 14 July to suspend the disciplinary chamber of the Supreme Court.
The Commission had made this threat on 20 July (see EUROPE 12762/23, EUROPE 12766/3) and had not received any convincing evidence from the Polish government in the meantime. It observes that despite the government’s statements, the disciplinary chamber is continuing its activities and launching actions against magistrates.
It also opened a new infringement via a letter of formal notice under Article 260 TFEU, as Warsaw has not “taken the necessary measures to comply fully with the judgment of the Court of Justice [of 15 July 2021, ed.] finding that the Polish law on the disciplinary regime for judges is not compatible with EU law” (see EUROPE 12763/7).
“Poland has indicated its intention to dismantle the disciplinary chamber in its current form, but without providing further details”, the Commission said in a statement.
The Commission will leave it to the EU Court of Justice to decide on the amount of these penalty payments, which will be assessed according to the seriousness of the situation, but also the frequency of decisions against Poland on this issue. Nor did it want to explicitly link these procedures with the ongoing discussion on the conditionality of European recovery funds.
For the S&D group in the European Parliament, the Commission did not go far enough on 7 September and should have activated the regulation on conditionality immediately, it said on Twitter. The group has asked for a new debate on the subject next week in plenary session. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)