Poland has received €6.3 billion worth of funds from the European Union, the first tranche of money that the left-liberal government had been promised for implementing laws that reverse judicial reforms of the previous, conservative cabinet. The decision to unblock the funds came just a few months after Donald Tusk’s Europhile government came into power in December, and it is a sign of how Brussels rewards governments it likes, but punishes others it ideologically disagrees with.
Poland received the transfer of the funds on Monday, April 15th, and may receive a further €10 billion by the end of the year, according to Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz, the minister responsible for EU funding. The money is part of the EU’s post-pandemic recovery fund, and Poland plans to spend most of it on areas such as clean air initiatives, expanding broadband internet coverage, roads and railways, and childcare facilities.
These funds were blocked off from the previous Polish government led by the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party which in many respects went against the mainstream ideological tide of the EU. The government’s hardline anti-migration and anti-abortion stance angered the Brussels elites, as did a verdict by the Polish Constitutional Court that ruled that EU law does not necessarily have primacy in Polish courts.
EU funds, however, were officially frozen for so-called ‘rule-of-law’ violations under the PiS government, namely the reform of the judiciary which Brussels claimed did not guarantee the independence of the courts. Seemingly the change in government and the mere promise by the Tusk cabinet to reverse the judicial reforms were enough for the EU to approve a €137 billion financial package for the country. The European Commission announced in February that it would start releasing funds, confident in promises by Tusk to restore “democratic norms.”
The Commission commended the new government for promoting what it called “judicial independence” as well as for putting the country’s legal system under greater EU oversight, and it welcomed moves towards adopting a more liberal stance on LGBT issues—another sign that the releasing of EU funds was more of a political decision than one based on the ‘rule of law.’
Brussels, not surprisingly, has been visibly unfazed by the new liberal government’s own rule-of-law violations since it took office—dismissing the top executives of the public service broadcaster, jailing two MPs from the Law and Justice party, raiding the home of the former justice minister, replacing the country’s prosecutors, and dragging the president of the central bank before a special tribunal. Law and Justice sees the actions of the government as pure political revenge, but EU institutions have not voiced their concerns. As Member of the European Parliament for PiS Ryszard Czarnecki recently told The European Conservative in an interview:
Double standards are emblematic of the EU. It is an example of the hypocrisy of Brussels. It is not Ursula von der Leyen who governs the EU, but hypocrisy.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen congratulated Poland on Monday for receiving the first batch of EU funds, while Donald Tusk cynically tweeted: “Good cooperation bears fruit.”
Former PiS Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said it was the fault of Tusk’s Civic Platform (PO) party that the money had not arrived earlier because PO had been “begging von der Leyen not to pay.”
