The European Commission has convinced Poland to add a clause to its partnership agreement that states that no EU payments can be made to a local authority that has taken discriminatory measures. This was confirmed by the Commissioners for Cohesion, Elisa Ferreira, and for Jobs and Social Rights, Nicolas Schmit, in a letter sent on 10 May to the Vice-Chair of the European Parliament’s LGBTI Intergroup, Pierre Karleskind (Renew Europe, French).
“This is a victory for love over hate and for the EU’s commitment to equal rights. As for those who still cling to discriminatory practices, they can kiss their EU funding goodbye”, Mr Karleskind said on Tuesday 16 May, on the eve of the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.
In fact, following Ms Ferreira and Mr Schmit’s trip to Poland for the adoption of €76 billion cohesion policy programmes, the MEP wrote to them about the persistence of ‘LGBT free zones’ in the country (see EUROPE 12743/24). While four out of five regions questioned by the Commission on this issue in 2021 have backed down, this is not the case for Łódź and 60 other municipalities.
In addition, Mr Karleskind noted that payments under Poland’s ‘Recovery and Resilience Facility’ are still blocked due to a lack of judicial reform, but not those under cohesion policy. He also asked the Commissioners about the lack of activation of the conditionality mechanism for the protection of the EU budget (see EUROPE 13084/19). On this point, the Commission recalled that these instruments “follow their own legal framework and procedures”.
To read Pierre Karleskind’s letter: https://aeur.eu/f/6wg
And the Commissioners’ response: https://aeur.eu/f/6wh (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)