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From: TT
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Photo: Olivier Hoslet / pool photo via AP / TT
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki is fighting for his right of veto within an EU he says he does not recognize.
The Polish prime minister defends the veto of EU budget plans, saying he does not want to be “punished like a child”.
At home, another Polish judge loses his immunity from prosecution.
Beginning to condition financial support on the principles of the rule of law and democracy runs the risk of creating divisions in the EU, says Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
“An EU where there is a European oligarchy that punishes the weakest members is not the EU we join, and it is not an EU with a future,” Morawiecki told the Polish parliament, along with a furious budget battle.
– We say yes to the EU, but not to the punishment of children, not to the mechanisms that make Poland and other countries treated unequally.
Controversy over reforms
The conditions mentioned by Morawiecki are such as to ensure that no EU money is paid to countries that do not meet the basic requirements of how a state governed by the rule of law and democracy should function.
The governments of Poland and Hungary have long been criticized by other members for far-reaching reforms of the respective judiciary and restrictions on press freedom, which they consistently reject.
As a countermeasure, they are now together blocking the EU negotiations on a new long-term budget.
Poland is one of the largest net recipients of economic funds from the EU and Hungary is not far behind.
Discipline meek
Among other things, the EU has criticized Poland for a special tribunal created by the country’s highest court, which has been given the opportunity to take disciplinary action against the country’s judges. The European Commission does not consider the board to be independent from political power and the Court of Justice of the European Union has ordered the Polish government to close it.
Igor Tuleya, a judge in Warsaw, was deprived on Wednesday of his immunity from prosecution by this committee. Tuleya has been an outspoken critic of the government’s legal reforms and is not the first judge to lose his immunity in the country, but he is said to be the first to do so as a result of his actions in court.
“You let it happen”
In 2017, he ruled in a case where the Polish parliament approved a budget in high-profile forms (there were no opposition politicians present) and then decided to leave the media in place and monitor it. Now he is expected to be disciplined for it.
Igor Tugaya addresses the rest of the EU in an interview with Reuters outside the Supreme Court:
– He did not defend the independence of the judiciary in Poland. He did not defend the independence of the Polish judges. You allowed the rule of law to be destroyed in Poland.
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