The European Commission has confirmed that it will deduct millions of euros from Poland’s European Union funds to cover fines that Warsaw has refused to pay.
It will be the first time that the EU has withheld funds from a member state for not complying with a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). However, the Polish government has declared that it will “use all legal means” to fight the decision.
The daily fines of €500,000 were imposed in September 2021 by the ECJ in response to Poland refusing an earlier order from the court to close down the Turów coal mine. Though Warsaw last week reached an agreement with the Czech Republic to end their dispute over the mine, the EU has insisted that the unpaid fines must still be paid.
By “offsetting” the sum from Poland’s EU funds, “the European Commission is fulfilling its legal obligation to collect financial penalties imposed by the court”, said spokesman Balazs Ujvari today, quoted by Onet.
The first tranche of money totals around €15 million and covers the period from 20 September, when the fines began, until 19 October. The commission will begin taking it in ten working days, said Ujvari. It is the first time the commission has ever withheld EU funds in this way, notes Reuters.
In total, Poland accrued almost €70 million of fines by the time it reached the agreement with the Czech government that led to Prague withdrawing its case against Warsaw at the ECJ.
Those fines will still have to be paid regardless of the deal with the Czechs over the mine because they stem from ignoring the ECJ’s ruling and not the issue of Turów itself, Artur Nowak-Far, a professor of European law at SGH Warsaw School of Economics, told financial news website Money.pl.
However, Polish government spokesman Piotr Müller told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) today that “Poland will use all possible legal means to appeal against these plans of the European Commission, [especially] as there was an agreement between the governments of Poland and the Czech Republic”.
"No judge from Luxembourg, no Brussels official can dictate to us how to rule in our own country," said Poland's prime minister after yesterday signing an agreement with his Czech counterpart to settle their dispute over the Turów coal mine https://t.co/7iPOSNpgwQ
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) February 4, 2022
“Poland has emphasised from the very beginning that the decisions taken by the ECJ have no legal or factual basis,” explained Müller. “They go beyond the EU treaties and violate the treaty guarantees of energy security…This is particularly important in the context of the current geopolitical threats from Russia.”
Separately, Poland has also been receiving daily fines of €1 million from the ECJ – the highest such penalties ever imposed by the court – since November for failing to comply with an order to suspend the activity of its disciplinary chamber for judges. They now total
Last month, the European Commission revealed that it had sent Warsaw a call to pay the first €69 million of those accumulated fines. Last week, in a bid to end that dispute, President Andrzej Duda proposed legislation to close down the chamber and replace it with a newly formed one.
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
