The European Commission (EC) will find a way for Poland to access some 111 billion euros in frozen European Union (EU) funds as the new Polish government moves to alleviate the bloc’s concerns about the country’s rule of law, European Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn declared on Wednesday.
The government of Poland’s new Prime Minister Donald Tusk was sworn in mid-week, completing a transfer of power that ends eight years of nationalist rule. Warsaw and Brussels had been at loggerheads for years under the previous government, which was led by the Law and Justice (PiS) party.
Tusk’s return to office has raised hopes that relations with the EU will be smoother.
“We have a lot of expectations and we will certainly support him (Tusk) in his efforts,” Commissioner Hahn told Reuters in an exclusive interview.
“We’re not talking about an immediate transfer of billions — it’s more about de-blocking of funds. We have to see how to proceed,” he said. “I’m sure that we will find ways to help Poland. We don’t have any doubts that they are moving so to say in the right rule-of-law direction,” he added.
Hahn’s was the first official word from the Commission about Poland’s prospects for gaining access to the EU funds since the change in government. Tusk, who arrived in Brussels on Wednesday for an EU summit, is to hold sideline discussions about the frozen funds with the Commission.
At stake is Poland’s access to 35.4 billion euros in grants and loans from the EU’s recovery fund, which had been suspended pending the restoration of the independence of Poland’s judiciary system, which had been undermined by the PiS government.
Similar concerns have blocked Poland’s access to 76.5 billion euros of EU cohesion funds, which are meant to raise the standard of living in poorer regions of the EU.
Poland must introduce new legislation if it is to meet EC demands that the previous, nationalist government’s measures be reversed. An added complication is that such new legislation will require the signature of President Andrzej Duda, whose term of office does not expire until mid-2025. He is aligned with the previous government and has made it clear that he is disinclined to support the new laws.
Hahn says the Commission will work with Warsaw to solve the problem but allows that for the time being he does not know how this might be done. “But we certainly will not wait one-and-a-half years, so I think there must be a kind of solution,” he asserted.
