The intensity of the hugs and handshakes received this week by the new Polish leader, Donald Tusk, from his European counterparts, both conservative and progressive, at the last summit of the year gives an idea of how much his country has been missed, governed for nine years by ultraconservative and Europhobic forces that grew with each front opened with Brussels. “Poland has returned to Europe,” Tusk said on Wednesday upon arriving in the community capital, a day after being sworn in as prime minister with the promise of restoring judicial independence in the country through reforms and gestures that would unlock access to tens of thousands of millions of euros in European aid.
Faced with the loneliness of Warsaw's former ally, the Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán, Tusk has been the absolute star of this European Council. “I feel that this is the most important moment of my political life,” acknowledged the leader of the Civic Platform (European People's Party) and president of the European Council between 2014 and 2019. Then, he recalled, he had a reputation for being “obsessed” with Russia, but he is not happy that he was right.
A firm ally of Ukraine, the Russian invasion allowed the then Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, a member of the Law and Justice party (PiS), to place Warsaw back in the European consensus at the cost of weakening his alliance with Orbán. But the persistent refusal of PiS to follow Brussels' recommendations to correct its controversial judicial reforms, and to abide by the rulings of the EU Court of Justice, has taken a heavy toll on its citizens: Poland has not yet accessed a single euro of the 59.8 billion Next Generation EU (NGEU) funds allocated to it.
The priority of the coalition led by Tusk is to access these items and yesterday it met with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to explain her Government's plans to comply as soon as possible with the milestones and conditions included in the Plan. of Polish Recovery and Resilience. Brussels will do everything possible to help him, Von der Leyen promised.
“We have to make up for lost time and I look forward to working closely to address the milestones on judicial independence and to be able to proceed with the first payment [requested yesterday by Tusk]. We will have to work hard, but with the measures he has taken so far and those he plans to take, I am confident that we will be able to resolve the issues together,” he added.
Von der Leyen took advantage of Tusk's visit to the Berlaymont, the headquarters of the Community Executive, to announce that the Commission will authorize the payment of 5.1 billion euros to Warsaw in advance of specific European funds to promote the decarbonization of its economy under the Repower EU program, launched to reduce dependence on Russian gas. The decision has to do with the green light that Brussels gave on November 21 to the review of the Polish Recovery Plan, in the final stretch of Morawiecki. “These are very important funds to modernize our economy and we will do everything possible to spend them well,” Tusk congratulated himself. “It will be a Christmas gift in the form of 5 billion, not a small gift at all,” he said in a colloquial tone.
The change “has begun,” Tusk said. “Lawyers, prosecutors, judges and citizens have never consented to the breaking of the rules or a Poland without the rule of law,” stressed the Polish Prime Minister, who recalled that his Government has initiated the procedures to join the European Prosecutor's Office to Fight Against the fraud. “This is a sign that we take rule of law issues very seriously, also when it comes to the correct use of European funds.”
Confident that the institutional reforms that he plans to adopt will go ahead and will allow the European requirements to be met to access European financing, Tusk yesterday presented the first request for payment of NGEU funds, worth 6.3 billion. Despite Tusk's aims to restore judicial independence, his plans may be hampered by Polish President Andrzej Duda or judges appointed by PiS, who have packed the courts with like-minded magistrates.
