Ziobro: CJEU ruling highlights historic mistake by PM Morawiecki

The European Union's top court on Wednesday (February 16) cleared the way for the bloc to potentially cut billions of euros in handouts to Poland and Hungary where populist rulers stand accused of violating democratic rights and freedoms.

There is no appeal against the ruling by the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice, which dismissed challenges by Warsaw and Budapest against a new EU sanction that would halt funding to member countries which break European laws.

At stake are hundreds of billions of euros of funds, the EU's internal cohesion, and international standing.

Thirty-six billion euros ($41 billion) in pandemic recovery funds earmarked for Poland, and 7 billion euros for Hungary, are already frozen over their track record on democratic rights and values.

The so-called "conditionality mechanism" could affect any part of the EU budget, worth 1.8 trillion euros ($2 trillion) for 2021-27.

"It's a historic moment of EU switching from a sphere of freedom, into a sphere where it will be possible to use unlawful violence to strip EU member states of this freedom and limit their sovereignty," Poland's Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro said at a press conference on Wednesday.

In his opinion, the CJEU ruling only confirmed "all concerns raised by United Poland (Ziobro's party which is a junior coalition partner) which until the very end firmly opposed introduction of such solution to the European legal order". "It is also evidence of a very serious political, historic mistake by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who agreed at a summit in Brissels in 2020 to introduce this ordinance, which today is being used to pressure Poland through economic blackmail," Ziobro argued.

He added that "CJEU is in fact a body in the sphere of influence of the European People's Party - a party which is an addition to German policy in the EU, led by Donald Tusk - at the mercy of Angela Merkel - who is carrying out orders coming from Berlin".

The minister also said that this case was not about the rule of law, but rather "brutal" fight for power in the EU.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was asked to comment on Ziobro's words at a press briefing later on Wednesday. "I'm not surprised by justice minister's agitation because this ruling, just like many other, pertains to an area he is trying to reform - the justice system. It's a very important sphere of our life," he said.

"It would certainly be a fundamental mistake if this ruling, just like many other relatinng to the broadly understood issue of justice system reform, caused any discord and misunderstanding within the United Right," the prime minister argued.

"I think that the unity of the United Right coalition is a huge value and it would be wrong if it was shaken this way," Morawiecki stressed.

"Poland believes that centralisation, bureaucratic centralisation, federalisation...is a dangerous process," he added.