POLAND - AND THE EU

Today I want to write about POLAND. This is a country of 312.696 sq.km and with 38 mill. inhabitants.  It became a member of the EU in 2004.  But today it is together with Hungary one of the naughty boys in the class. How? Because it in important issues do not respect rules, which it signed up to by applying for membership of the EU.  

One issue is the full independence of the courts. This principle is an unconditional condition to be a member.  This principle has been violated in Poland, where the governmnet my now influence the courts and their Work, incl. dismissing judges, if they do not Work as the government wants.  The EU Supreme Court in Luxembourg has in more cases, also very recently, rules that this MUST change, if Poland wants to continue to be an EU member state and profit from the advantages of membership.

Another dispute is Poland's refusal to receive refugees. Another EU court ruling has said that the country is obliged to receive them according to EU rules.   And a third issue is the fight for the climate, where coal producing Poland is a very difficult partner too.

What does this then mean concretely?  EU has no article in its treaty saying how to expel a member state.  But I am certain, that these repetitive breaches of important EU rules and principles will play an important role whan the new EU budget for the coming 7 years will be negotiated and when new rules on refugees will be decided.  In politics it is an old rule that nobody can get away with constantly breaking the common rules without having to feel serious consequences.  

A very interesting factor is that the Polish population according to the opinion polls is one of the most EU positive populations in Europe.

Poland will have election for the post as the country's president on May 10.  The present president, Andrzej Duda, belongs to the ruling party and is therefore supporter of its politicies, also in Europe. He is a candidate for a new period as president.  The leaders of the party are very worried that he might not be re-elected, if the election is postponed due to the corona crisis. If so, the very negative economic consequences will most certainly bite, if the election takes place later in the year. Therefore, they have suggested to go ahead with the election on May 10 - but exceptionally only with voting by letter.  The opposition is obviously against that.

If you want to follow Polish affairs, you can do it in a couple of English language media:
Polish Radio:      https://www.polskieradio.pl/395 
Poland.pl:           https://poland.pl/politics/

A very well-known and highly respected American journalist - and married to a Pole - Anne Applebaum, knows a lot about Poland and writes about it:
Blog:      www.anneapplebaum.com
Twitter:   @anneapplebaum

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