2023-01-13 13:41 update: 2023-01-14, 11:11
Photo PAP/Piotr Nowak
Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, has praised the passing of a court reform in the Sejm (lower house of the Polish parliament) and said the key aim of the move was to end a rule-of-law dispute with the European Commission (EC).
The Sejm on Friday passed a Supreme Court reform that was required by the EC as a condition to release the multi-billion EU post-pandemic fund for Poland.
After the vote, in which the bill was supported by the ruling party Law and Justice (PiS), but not its coalition ally Solidary Poland, a small Eurosceptic party, Morawiecki said the bill "is a difficult compromise, but the point is to end one dispute (with the EC - PAP)."
Poland is due to receive EUR 23.9 billion in grants and EUR 11.5 billion in cheap loans from the EU's post-pandemic Recovery and Resilience Facility, a fund that most EU members are already spending money from.
"We're looking to the East, we're looking to the West and we want to end the western dispute, because the real enemy, the real opponent is in the East and I believe all Poles realise that perfectly well," the prime minister said.
Morawiecki also said that "in times of fight for the security of Polish borders" the government must take care of all available funds to spur Poland's growth and quell financial markets."
Zbigniew Ziobro, head of Solidary Poland and the justice minister in the Morawiecki government, said the law was detrimental to Poland's interests as it meant yielding to blackmail from Brussels.
"We will take all possible steps for the solutions not to come into force," Ziobro said.
But Morawiecki said that "politics is the art of compromise, and we have managed to achieve this difficult compromise."
Opposition MPs mostly abstained from voting on Friday. (PAP)
