

EU ramps up pressure on Poland

The Parliament and the Commission feel the government hasn’t made enough concessions.


Passed by a margin of 510 votes to 160 with 29 abstentions, the symbolic resolution found that there is still a "systemic risk to the rule of law" in Poland. It's the latest step in Brussels' attempt to bring Warsaw to heel in a long-running dispute over the shape of the country's highest constitutional court.


The Polish government has made some concessions, but those still far short of the Commission's demands.

"At this stage, the dispute concerning the composition and the judgments of the constitutional of the tribunal remains unresolved," Frans Timmermans, the deputy head of the Commission, told the Parliament on Tuesday.

The fight broke out late last year, when Poland's newly elected Law and Justice party government refused to seat five judges appointed to the Constitutional Tribunal by the previous government. Law and Justice then elected and swore in five judges of its own. However, the tribunal’s president declined to seat three of them.


