Poland has concluded negotiations with Brussels on the post-Covid-19 recovery plan, which should allow its rapid unblocking by the European Commission, the Polish Government said this Friday.
“Both the team on the Polish side and the team that was created by the President of the European Commission reached an agreement on the content” of the main points of the plan, said the spokesman of the Polish Government, Piotr Müller.
This means, according to the spokesman, that the recovery plan, worth a total of around 35 billion euros, “should be formally approved” in the coming days.
“We are currently awaiting a final step from the European Commission,” added Müller.
The Polish post-Covid-19 recovery plan was blocked by Brussels due to conflicts over the state of justice in Poland and, in particular, the existence of the disciplinary chamber of the Supreme Court, a body accused by the European Union of undermining the independence of the judges.
Today, the European Commission underlined, in a message published on the social network Twitter, that “the Polish plan should include commitments to: dismantle the Disciplinary Chamber, reform the disciplinary regime and reinstate illegally dismissed judges”.
According to the Polish Minister of Development and Technologies, quoted by the PAP agency, Poland agreed to dissolve the disciplinary chamber and introduce “some changes” to the current disciplinary regime in the second half of this year.
A project presented by Polish President Andrzej Duda on the disciplinary chamber is currently being discussed in the Polish parliament.
Poland, led by the populist-nationalist PiS party, and Brussels, have been at loggerheads for years on various issues, not respecting Warsaw’s decisions by European justice.
The country was sentenced to daily financial sanctions for having, in July, ignored an order by the EU Court of Justice to end the activity of that disciplinary chamber.
Warsaw was also financially sanctioned for failing to respect an ECJ ruling on the closure of a coal mine.