'The sense of urgency is there': EU concern over Poland's commitment to rule of law is mounting

The European Union on Wednesday will mull turning up the heat on Poland's rightwing government over plans to reshape the country's courts -- a drive critics say would undermine judicial freedom.

After launching reforms of the constitutional court following its election victory in late 2015, the Polish government last week moved to overhaul the entire judicial system.

"We are following these developments with great concern," said Margaritis Schinas, spokesman for the European Commission, the powerful executive of the 28-nation EU, said.

The Commission will hold high-level talks on Wednesday before Vice President Frans Timmermans gives his assessment of the situation.

Schinas said it was still unclear how events will unfold as the reforms are contained in draft laws and the Polish legislative process is not yet complete.

"Tomorrow there will be a political debate. The sense of urgency is there," a senior EU official said.

"However, for technical reasons it won't be possible to adopt decisions just yet."

Concern in Luxembourg

Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn has also voiced his concerns about the situation in Poland, talking on the ZDF "Morgenmagazin," on Tuesday.

He criticised the judicial reform in Poland, saying it was "surreal", how "crass" the Polish public was being led away from the rule of law and that the developments were "extremely shocking."

"The Commission has until now, with a lot of patience and commitment, tried to reach something in the dialogue, but the time of the dialogue is reaching its end, in my opinion," Asselborn said. 

He also added that part of the problem in Poland was the mentality of the party at the head of the government, who say that they won the Polish elections, they are governing Poland, not Brussels or the EU."If every country acted like that, then we would not have a European Union anymore ...  because the values, the freedoms, the democracy, the rule of law, the human rights are being disregarded by the government," Asselborn said.

Compromise

On the eve of the Brussels meeting, Polish President Andrzej Duda suggested a compromise that, he said, would safeguard a key judicial watchdog.

The European Commission has already warned the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) to reverse changes to the constitutional court or face sanctions for breaching EU norms on the rule of law and democracy.

Last year it launched an unprecedented procedure which could eventually see Warsaw's voting rights suspended in the Council of Ministers, the EU's highest decision-making body.

Timmermans has in recent months resisted pressure from European Parliament and other critics to move to sanctions, favouring continued dialogue with PiS. But the pressure and the stakes keep mounting.

On Sunday, thousands rallied in the capital Warsaw, Krakow, Szczecin and Wroclaw against reforms that were passed by the senate the day before, and more protests took place Tuesday in Warsaw.

The first bill stipulates that from now on the parliament -- which is controlled by the PiS party -- will choose the members of the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS), whose role is to protect the independence of courts.

The second bill states that the minister of justice will name the chief justices for the EU member country's common courts.

Both texts were adopted days earlier by the lower house of parliament and now they need only to be signed by President Andrzej Duda, who is closely allied with the PiS, to become law.

But Duda, in a surprise move on Tuesday, warned he would not approve the reform of the Supreme Court unless lawmakers amended the KRS bill.

He tabled a short draft bill stating that the members of the KRS would need to be elected by 60 percent of lawmakers.

Because that is a majority that the PiS does not have, the threshold would rule out the possibility that the party would single-handedly decide the composition of the KRS.

"This draft bill should stop the Council from being subject to a single party, a single political group. This is unacceptable... It would be seen as a political diktat," Duda said.

The major political groups in the European Parliament, the EU's only elected body, have urged the Commission "to act now and clearly" to save EU democracy and rule of law norms from the Polish reforms, according to a letter they sent Monday.

(AFP/Barbara Tasch)