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Warsaw / Strasbourg. (Tsar) Malgorzata Gersdorf seemed to work. It would not be unusual on other days for the President of the Supreme Court of Poland. But since yesterday, Wednesday, she should retire. At least when it is the Cabinet in Warsaw. This has reduced the retirement age of judges to 65 – and suddenly more than a third of Supreme Court positions would be filled. The ministers want to hand over the national-conservative PiS (Law and Justice) party to their kind people, my critic.
The measures are part of a judicial reform that provoked protests in Germany and abroad for two and a half years. The controversial occupations in the Constitutional Court, the new regulations for ordinary courts and only for the Supreme Court fuel fears that the independence of the judiciary is being undermined. The European Commission is already examining the rule of law in Poland and it was only on Monday that it initiated proceedings against Warsaw for violation of the Supreme Court pension. Hundreds of protesters gathered Wednesday in front of the courthouse to express their support for the judges.
Gersdorf pointed out that she did not want to make politics with her presence in the house. On the contrary, she wanted to protect the rule of law. "I hope that the judicial system in Poland will be restored," says the news agency PAP, whose mandate is until 2020.
No more than an hour later , after the intervention of Gersdorf, the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki Lutrin – but in Strasbourg. There, the deputies gathered for their plenary session. Morawiecki defended the PiS government reforms: every country has the right to organize its own judicial system.
Struggle for Grants
In general, the national level in the EU must be considered carefully. The relationship between the Member States and the EU institutions needed to be redefined.
However, Mr Morawiecki also indicated where the EU should be involved: in the financial area. A large common household is needed. And subsidies – for infrastructure, for example – would also pay off for countries that demand budget cuts, such as Austria. After all, 70 cents of every euro in the form of orders go to net contributors, who contribute more to the budget than they come back from.
It is mainly the countries of Eastern Europe, and Poland in particular, which receive the resources of the Pots infrastructure benefit. They will continue to do so, said Vice President of the European Commission Valdis Dombrovskis in Strasbourg. He envisioned what Poland has achieved with the help of EU money, which is currently raising to 86 billion euros: the construction of 13,000 kilometers of roads, high-speed Internet access for nine million citizens. Even if the subsidies were slightly reduced, the Poles would continue to benefit greatly, said Dombrovskis
. He found words critical for Polish judicial reform. He did not accept the argument of the national court, since the Union is also a community of law. "When the separation of powers is weakened or the independence of the judiciary is threatened, the whole community is affected," Dombrovskis said. His authority wants to continue the dialogue with Poland.
Up to now, however, the Warsaw government has hardly been willing to accept concessions. It is only in a few cases that she has responded to protests – as in the debate on a tightening of the abortion law. After protests across the country, she refused to do so.
PiS chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who does not hold a government office but is considered a leader, was recently retained in the ongoing judicial debate. As in other cases also: For weeks, since his hospitalization, he has not appeared publicly.
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