EU to end sanctions procedure against Poland

Donald Tusk and Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels in December. Von der Leyen congratulated Tusk and his government ‘on this important breakthrough’. Photograph: Olivier Hoslet/EPA

The European Commission has said it will end an EU sanctions procedure against Poland after a promise from Donald Tusk’s new government to restore the independence of the judiciary.

In an announcement on Monday, the EU executive said it no longer saw “a clear risk of a serious breach of the rule of law in Poland” and planned to withdraw the article 7 sanctions procedure that could in theory have led to Warsaw being stripped of EU voting rights.

“Today marks a new chapter for Poland,” the commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said in a statement that congratulated Tusk and his government “on this important breakthrough”.

She added: “The ongoing restoration of the rule of law in Poland is great for the Polish people and for our union as a whole.”

Tusk, a former Polish prime minister and European Council president, won an election in October and took office with a promise to “fix everything together”. His government in February published an action plan aimed at restoring the independence of the judiciary and ending numerous conflicts with the commission and the European court of justice.

Under the plan, judge members of Poland’s national council of the judiciary will be elected by their peers in a secret ballot to end the influence of politicians, measures will be taken to enshrine the independence of the supreme court, and Polish judges will no longer face disciplinary action for following EU law.

On Monday, the commission said “the first concrete steps” taken by Poland to implement that plan and an acknowledgment about deficiencies in the rule of law were all relevant to its verdict that the rule of law was no longer threatened. Poland’s decision to join the European public prosecutor’s office, an EU body to investigate cross-border fraud, also weighed in its favour.

“Great news from Brussels today! Thank you President @vonderleyen for the cooperation and support,” Poland’s justice minister, Adam Bodnar, wrote on X. “We are determined and devoted to our common European values.”

The EU’s 26 other member states will have the chance to make “observations” before the commission formally withdraws the sanctions procedure against Poland.

The article 7 process against Poland was launched in 2017 after the hard-right nationalist government of the Law and Justice party began overhauling the court system to increase its control over the judiciary. Known as the nuclear option, article 7 could lead to an EU member state losing its right to vote in the EU council. The Polish case, however, drifted for years because it was feared that Hungary’s hard-right nationalist government would veto any action against its erstwhile ideological ally.