{"id":290732,"date":"2024-01-10T11:15:08","date_gmt":"2024-01-10T10:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/01\/10\/polonia-tusk-duda-stato-di-diritto-ue\/"},"modified":"2024-01-12T19:16:41","modified_gmt":"2024-01-12T18:16:41","slug":"tusk-duda-battle-over-alignment-with-eu-rule-of-law-rules-rattles-poland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/01\/10\/tusk-duda-battle-over-alignment-with-eu-rule-of-law-rules-rattles-poland\/","title":{"rendered":"Tusk-Duda battle over alignment with EU rule of law rules rattles Poland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – It was not a smooth handover for Poland after\u00a0last year’s October elections\u00a0handed the governments’ leadership to Donald Tusk<\/strong>. Because despite the (at least momentary) exit of the ultraconservative former prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki<\/strong>, the Law and Justice (PiS) party that was in power for eight years can still count on a top institutional figure: the president of the Republic, Andrzej Duda<\/strong>. Not even a month since the entry of the new Tusk cabinet,<\/a> tensions are already running high between the two Polish leaders on the issue that has made relations between Warsaw and Brussels so difficult for years – respect for the principles of the rule of law – as the political news of the last few hours in the country are showing.<\/p>\n

\"Tusk<\/a>
From left: Polish President, Andrzej Duda, and Prime Minister, Donald Tusk<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last night (Jan. 9), Polish police entered the presidential palace to take into custody two PiS parliamentarians – Mariusz Kami\u0144ski<\/strong> and Maciej W\u0105sik<\/strong> – convicted by the Warsaw District Court of abuse of office and who sought refuge in Duda’s\u00a0residence to seek a pardon. In 2015,<\/strong> just weeks after the ultra-conservative party came to power,\u00a0 the president had decided to pardon the two deputies <\/strong>– allowing them first to be part of the government of Beata Szyd\u0142o<\/strong> and then the one led by Morawiecki. However, this decision did not\u00a0respect one of the principles of the rule of law<\/strong>, namely the natural course of the judicial process (that can eventually lead to a pardon), which the Tusk-led coalition said was politically motivated. Kami\u0144ski and W\u0105sik were sentenced to two years in prison by the court. After the swearing-in of the new parliament, the new speaker, Szymon Ho\u0142ownia<\/strong> (Poland 2050), ordered the revocation of the mandates of the two deputies newly elected from the ranks of PiS, stripping them of their parliamentary immunity.<\/p>\n

\"Donald<\/a><\/figure>\n

From left: the Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen (December 15, 2023)<\/p>\n

So, in the event of a new pardon\u00a0by President Duda, an institutional conflict could erupt in Poland<\/strong> since the new government is unwilling to give discounts to the former ruling party and is intent on realigning the country to the principles of the rule of law. For weeks now, Tusk has been working to unhinge the influence-peddling system that has characterized the eight years of ultra-conservative rule in key areas such as media and state-owned companies, but also on the judicial level. For the new cabinet, the return to respect for the rule of law is a founding pillar, not only of the government’s program but, more importantly, to unlock all the<\/strong> 59.4 billion euros from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP)<\/strong>. “Without confidence in the restoration of the rule of law, the Commission would not have made this decision,” Tusk said<\/a>\u00a0in front of the EU executive chief, Ursula von der Leyen<\/strong>, when\u00a05 billion<\/a> of pre-financing of the RePowerEu chapter was released on\u00a0December 15.<\/p>\n

Tusk’s challenge on rule of law in Poland<\/h3>\n

While facing challenges from President Duda’s obstructionism, Tusk will have a lot of work to resolve problems created by the previous government over standards of respect for the rule of law, which have strained relations between Warsaw and Brussels in recent years. Since 2021, there has been an ongoing legal dispute brought about by two rulings of the Constitutional Court of Poland<\/strong>: the first on July 14, when the Warsaw courts\u00a0rejected the EU regulation allowing the EU Court of Justice to rule on “systems, principles and procedures” of Polish courts; the second on October 7, when the Constitutional Court challenged the primacy of EU law, calling Articles 1 and 19 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and several rulings of EU courts “incompatible” with the Polish Constitution.<\/p>\n

\"Polonia<\/a><\/figure>\n

Former Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki<\/p>\n

At the heart of the dispute is the decision to provisionally suspend the powers of the disciplinary section of Poland’s Supreme Court<\/strong> due to some arbitrary measures against magistrates that the ruling majority disliked. While a European Commission infringement procedure is underway, the EU Court of Justice ordered the member country to pay a one million euro per day fine: the bill has already risen over half a billion euros<\/strong> – 526 million to be exact<\/strong> – from October 27, 2021, to April 14, 2023. On the day of the ousting of former premier Morawiecki<\/a>\u00a0for a new term as premier, Poland’s Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional the fines imposed on\u00a0the justice system and the Tur\u00f3w lignite mine,\u00a0exacerbating the dispute with Brussels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the heart of the clash between the new premier and the president of the Republic is the case of two deputies of the former ruling Law and Justice party convicted of abuse of office, who sought refuge in the presidential palace to avoid being arrested. The possible decision on a (new) pardon could open an institutional conflict<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5647,"featured_media":290683,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[25947,25948,25952,26301,26302],"class_list":["post-290732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-andrzej-duda-en","tag-donald-tusk-one-two","tag-poland-and","tag-respect-status-right-en","tag-state-of-right-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5647"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290732"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290994,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290732\/revisions\/290994"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}