Von der Leyen: EU Commission won't approve Polish recovery plan unless all requirements are met

Spokesperson for the Polish government Piotr Muller told a private broadcaster Wirtualna Polska on Wednesday that the "negotiations over the National Recovery Plan have come to an end" and that it was an official information. "European Commission chief informed the political groups that the KPO (National Recovery Plan) will soon be approved by the Commission," he added.

Muller also said that the money would be most likely paid out around September, as the EU Commission would spend July and August on "calculating the KPO". "Unfortunately, the European bureaucracy, the European mills grind a bit longer," he said.

The spokesman added, however, that in order for the money to be paid out, the negotiated "milestones" would have to be met first.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday (May 17) replied to a letter she had received from MEPs from various groups, including Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, Renew Europe, Greens–European Free Alliance, and European United Left/Nordic Green Left.

In the letter sent von der Leyen in March, the MEPs wrote about rumours regarding potential agreement between the Commission and the Polish government on the National Recovery Fund. They said that respecting the rule of law had fundamental significance, especially in the context of the war in Ukraine.

In a her response, von der Leyen assured that each member state had concrete requirements to fulfill before their national recovery plans could be accepted. "In case of Poland, the independece of the judiciary is one such challenge that has been identified in the country-specific recommendations," she wrote.

"Furthermore, the Regulation provides that the Commission must be satisfied that there is a robust governance and control system at national level to protect the financial interests of the Union. An independent judiciary is an essential element of such a system, contributing to prevention, detection and correction of potential irregularities such as/raud and corruption," the EC chief added in a letter to MEPs.

EU executive chief also listed the three necessary requirements Poland would need to fulfill to have its recovery plan approved: the Disciplinary Chamber should be dismantled; the disciplinary regime applicable to judges must be reformed; judges affected by decisions of the Disciplinary Chamber should benefit from the possibility to be reinstated.

"Poland would need to demonstrate that these milestones have been fulfilled before any disbursement under the Recovery and Resilience Facility could take place," von der Leyen said, stressing that "the rule of law is one of the fundamental values of the European Union".

"Let me conclude by reaffirming that the Commission is approaching the negotiations with Poland with full determination to ensure the respect of the requirements of the Recovery and Resilience Facility Regulation. The Commission will not approve any recovery and resilience plan if it is not satisfied that all assessment criteria are complied with," she concluded.

TVN24 correspondent in Brussels Maciej Sokołowski pointed out that the EU Commission had been mentioning the three criteria for the recovery plan since October 2021 and that this stance had never changed.

Sokołowski added that it could not be ruled out that the Commission would still approve the recovery plan. "On the contrary, it is (the approval) possible any minute now, but exactly on condition that Poland agrees to include these three criteria in the KPO, which would make the money flow in tranches depending on the implementation of these points," TVN24 correspondent said.