The disciplinary body of the Supreme Court in Poland should have met on Monday.

It would have been her first hearing after the judgment of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on Thursday last week, in which it declared the Polish disciplinary system for judges to be incompatible with EU law.

But the meeting was postponed until the end of September - officially for formal reasons.

Reinhard Veser

Editor in politics.

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In the Polish media, however, it is said that in reality the judges do not know how to behave in the face of the ECJ's request to immediately stop the work of their chamber.

The chairman of the Supreme Court announced last week that the Chamber would judge again.

She cited the Polish Constitutional Court, which one day before the ECJ ruling had declared any influence by European judges on the functioning of Polish courts to be unconstitutional.

Expensive confrontation course for Poles

It is not just the attitude of the Supreme Court justices that is contradicting itself. Even the right-wing government in Warsaw is apparently not yet clear about how to react to the ECJ ruling. This put her in a difficult position. On the one hand, after the many strong words she made in the dispute over her so-called judicial reform towards the EU Commission and the ECJ, she can hardly withdraw without losing face. On the other hand, by threatening to pay fines if the Polish government does not implement the ECJ ruling within a month, the EU Commission has made it clear to her that a confrontational course on this issue can be very expensive for Poland.

And the fines could just be the prelude to much more severe financial sanctions. The EU Commission could, as it did in the case of Hungary due to doubts about the rule of law control of the use of the funds from the Corona reconstruction fund, withhold their disbursement temporarily; and if the ECJ approves the new rule of law mechanism in the fall, which is considered likely, it will even have the option of withdrawing significant funds from Poland.

Poland is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Corona Reconstruction Fund.

The billions that the country is entitled to from this are the prerequisite for the implementation of the package of extensive social benefits announced by the government in May under the title “The Polish Order”.

They are supposed to secure the victory in the parliamentary election of 2023 for the “United Right” under the leadership of the national conservative “Law and Justice” (PiS).

At the same time, the government camp, which was torn by intrigues and content-related contradictions, was to consolidate again.

Since the victory of PiS candidate Andrzej Duda in the presidential election a year ago, it has been staggering from one crisis to the next and has been on the verge of breaking up several times.

Hard anti-European wing in the government camp

Immediately after the ECJ ruling on the disciplinary body was pronounced last week, the Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro said that “decisions of this kind” did not affect Poland. Ziobro is an exponent of the right-wing, hard anti-European wing in the government camp, which has also categorically rejected the EU's Corona reconstruction fund as a threat to Poland's sovereignty. In the vote on this in the Polish parliament, the government was therefore dependent on votes from the opposition.

Statements by various PiS politicians now suggest that extensive changes in the laws governing the work of Polish courts and also of the Supreme Court could be a way out. These new regulations would then be the subject of new assessments by the EU Commission and possibly proceedings before the ECJ, which again - as in the case of the disciplinary chamber - could drag on for more than two years.

However, the next possible confrontation between Poland and the EU is imminent at the beginning of August. On August 3rd, at the request of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish Constitutional Court is due to decide whether the EU treaty is compatible with the Polish constitution. There is no doubt that the court will follow political guidelines in making this decision. Even the postponement of the judgment originally announced for last week has been interpreted by the Polish media as an attempt by the government to gain time for talks with Brussels.

The PiS brought the constitutional court under its control immediately after its first election victory in autumn 2015. Its chairwoman Julia Przylebska is a confidante of the PiS chairman and deputy prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who is decisive in all important decisions in the government camp. Critics of the Polish government point out that the EU Treaty of Lisbon in 2007 for Poland was signed by Jaroslaw Kaczynski's late twin brother Lech, who was then president.