WARSAW, Nov 6 Poland will no longer make concessions to the European commission, President Andrzej Duda said in an interview with Sieci.
In June, the European Commission approved a plan to restore the Polish economy, which was hit by the coronavirus pandemic, totaling more than 35 billion euros. It was agreed with a delay, despite the EU's continued claims to Warsaw regarding the observance of European rules of the rule of law. Nevertheless, later the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said that Poland would receive these funds only if the reforms insisted on in Brussels were implemented.
«I will no longer take any retaliatory steps to proposals from that side. As far as I know, we have met all the conditions to receive money from KPO, our spending plan has been approved. We are waiting for the payment of what is due to us,» said Duda.
According to him, Warsaw has already shown «a lot of good will» and any further concessions will not bring results. In addition, the head of state expressed the opinion that some politicians in Brussels want to achieve a change of power in Poland.
“We know for sure that there is a group there that pursues policies that are contrary to the basic interests of the Polish state and rubs their hands when Poland is harmed in Brussels. I’m sorry, but these are facts. As well as the fact that the left-liberal camp, whose representatives are mainly sit in the EU, wants to achieve a change of power in Poland at any cost,» the Polish president said.
Earlier, the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg ordered Warsaw to pay one million euros per day in favor of the European Commission as a fine for failure to comply with an earlier court decision to terminate the activities of the disciplinary chamber for judges. Last summer, according to the amendments to the law «On the Supreme Court» adopted by the country under pressure from the EC, a chamber of professional responsibility of judges was created instead of a disciplinary chamber.
The leaders of the EU member states at the Brussels summit in December 2020 agreed on a multi-year financial plan and an economic recovery fund, which were previously blocked by Poland and Hungary. The claims of Warsaw and Budapest concerned the intention of other countries to link the allocation of money from the EU budget to issues of the rule of law in individual countries.
In July 2020, after one of the longest EU summits in history, the leaders agreed on a package of 750 billion euros for finance the recovery of Europe, whose economy has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. This emergency aid package is linked to the 1.08 trillion euro multi-year financial plan of the European Union and includes the possibility of issuing soft loans and subsidies to the countries of the union.
The countries of Western and Northern Europe insisted on introducing a «conditional mechanism» in order to ensure that the recipient states of pan-European funds adhere to the values and norms of the EU and that Brussels has a mechanism to stop such funding in case of departure from the norms. The «conditional mechanism» was introduced against the background of many years of disagreements in the union, primarily because of the actions of the authorities of Poland and Hungary, which are criticized by Western European countries for inconsistency of policy with the principles of the rule of law.