• European justice The EU opens legal actions against Hungary and Poland for violating the rights of LGTB people

  • EU Brussels threatens Poland with millionaire fines if it does not accept the primacy of European law before August 16

The European Union is (no longer) a project, it is not (just) an idea and it is not, of course, a State or a federation thereof. The EU is a balance built on political premises and legal foundations and the Constitutional Court of Poland has just lashed out with force against one of its essential pillars. The high court has ruled this Thursday, in a case initiated at the request of the Government, that articles 1 and 19 of the Treaty of the European Union are incompatible with the Polish Constitution, since

the Republic "cannot be a sovereign and democratic state"

if it allows the EU to have the last word in those areas whose competences do not correspond to it.

The stick is monumental and a nightmare for Brussels. A few months ago there was a major scare when the German Constitutional, Kalrsruhe, ordered the country's president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier,

not to sign legislation approved by two thirds of the

German

Parliament

and by the Senate that ratified the approval of the so-called "decision. own resources "of the EU. It is a technical question that has the approval of the Commission, the European Parliament and the governments of the 27, including Berlin, but that had to be ratified by all the national chambers. The German Court wanted to have the last word and questioned the decision-making capacity of the Court of Justice of the EU, which it accused of exceeding its functions.

The underlying problem is who has the last word.

Community, European law takes precedence over national law.

There cannot be an EU like the current one if that axiom is not respected. There may be other things but not the Union that we all know, but the Polish court does not see it that way. For years there has been an open war between Warsaw, Brussels and Luxembourg. The European Commission has repeatedly taken Poland to court for its legal reforms, for trying to end the independence of judges, for

forcibly retiring

many. Warsaw, led by Mateusz Morawiecki, has always lost but has not given up. The other way around has gone to the end.

"Poland has just taken a legal step towards the abyss of

'legal Polexit',"

explained Jakub Jaraczewski, a researcher for Democracy Reporting International, highlighting that what happened this Thursday is not comparable to what was seen in Germany or the Czech Republic because the judges did not they are independent, but rather are subject to the government party, the PiS (Law and Justice). Only two magistrates have disagreed with the decision. "To make one thing clear: the Court does not say that the principle of the primacy of EU law is incompatible with the Polish Constitution as a whole, but

the limits set by the judgment are quite elastic,"

Jaraczewski adds. "It should be clearly emphasized that Poland respects the applicable rules of EU law insofar as they have been established" in the EU Treaties, government spokesman Piotr Muller said in statements collected by Bloomberg.

The next step will be an infringement procedure, presumably, which is legally the only weapon available, although of doubtful efficacy. Any attempt to activate Article 7 of the Treaties, the

'nuclear button'

that can ultimately leave a country even without the right to vote in the European Council, would be blocked by Hungary. European sources suspect that the Polish government will want to take advantage of the coming weeks to

try to complete its most controversial and criticized reforms,

and it remains to be seen whether the CJEU, with precautionary measures or not, can do something. "It is a legal revolution," explains René Repasi, professor of International and European Law at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam.

"It is the clearest step towards a legal exit from the EU that a national court has ever taken," he

adds.

The recovery plan, in limbo

But perhaps the most interesting debate in the background is that of what situation opens as of today.

Some actors will say that you have to act as if it had not happened and continue negotiating politically.

Others, more harsh, can interpret the Constitutional decision almost as what happened with the activation by the United Kingdom of

Article 50

that led to its withdrawal.

And a part that cannot be ignored, inside and outside the institutions, will see the challenge as a breach of the legal order, assuming that the Treaties cease to have effects in Poland.

A gigantic problem in any of its variants.

The Commission opened it in June to Germany due to the actions of its Court in estimating that it had opened a dangerous precedent and will be one more in the battle with Warsaw.

Brussels, however, now has a very powerful weapon in its arsenal: money.

The European Commission has not yet approved the Polish Recovery Plan, the necessary process to be

able to access billions

financed by joint debt issues.

Warsaw needs that money but it will not have many allies who defend moving forward.

Politically it is almost impossible to sustain the 'business as usual', the one that everything continues in march.

The technical services detected deficiencies in the Polish program, precisely for legal reasons, and the commissioners hold the same opinion.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Poland

  • Germany

  • European Comission

  • Hungary

  • United Kingdom

  • Berlin

  • European Parliament

EuropeThe EU freezes enlargement dreams in the Balkans

Energy crisis Sánchez doubles in Europe the 'lobby' for the electricity reform and asks the PP to wait before appealing the Housing Law

Electrification The gulf between EU requirements and the necessary charging network

See links of interest

  • La Palma volcano

  • Last News

  • Translator

  • Work calendar

  • How to

  • Home THE WORLD TODAY

  • Fact checking

  • Semifinal, live: Italy - Spain

  • FC Bayern Munich - Barça

  • Semifinal, live: Belgium - France