Finance ministry reveals EU funds affected by CJEU penalties imposed on Poland

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) imposed daily penalties on Poland in relation to two cases.

The first one was the Turów mine dispute between Poland and the Czech Republic. Poland was being charged 500,000 euro per day between September 20, 2021, and February 3, 2022. The daily penalties were stopped after Poland and Czechia had reached an agreement over the issue.

The other case pertains to penalties imposed for the functioning of the illegitimate Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court. In the summer of 2021, the CJEU ordered Poland to immediately suspend all provisions related to the authority of said Disciplinary Chamber, including lifiting of judges' immunities. The EU highest court imposed a penalty of 1.5 million euro per day on Poland for not complying with the order. The daily penalties have been in place since November 3, 2021.

TVN24 correspondent in Brussels Maciej Sokołowski received a reply from the Ministry of Finance, regarding the funds from which CJEU penalty money had been deducted.

According to the ministry, as a result of Poland's non-compliance with the CJEU ruling regarding Turów coal mine, the European Commission has deducted a total of 68,554,513.69 euro from the following programmes:

- Operational Programme Knowledge Education Development,

- Regional Operational Programme for Kujawsko-Pomorskie Voivodeship,

- Common Agricultural Policy,

- Operational Programme Digital Poland.

For not complying with the CJEU ruling regarding the Diciplinary Chamber, Poland will have to pay 111,130,602.76 euro from the following programmes:

- Operational Programme Smart Growth,

- Operational Programme Knowledge Education Development.

As of yet, the Ministry of Finance has not released data regarding exact deductions from each particular programme.

It is important to stress that the end beneficiaries should not see any difference as, in this case, Poland not only loses money from EU funds, but is also forced to reimburse for the loss with money from the state budget.

Maciej Sokołowski explained that if some money was deducted, for instance, from funds for a given Polish province, then the Polish government would have to cover the difference from the national budget. "Therefore, it is unlikely that the government will say: well, there's no money because the EU took it away. If the EU takes it away, the state budget must compensate," TVN24 reporter said.

He added that "such is the stance by the European Commission", and the Ministry of Finance confirmed that was exactly what was happening. "The indicated deductions will not directly affect the beceficiaries of the programmes, from which their funds have been deducted," the finance ministry said.