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Poland will reject ‘incompatible’ EU demands: PM

PR dla Zagranicy
Paweł Kononczuk 27.10.2016 14:36
Prime Minister Beata Szydło said on Thursday her government would not introduce legal changes recommended by the European Commission that are incompatible with Polish interests.
PM Beata Szydło. Photo: PAP/Radek PietruszkaPM Beata Szydło. Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka

Amid a constitutional crisis in Poland, the European Commission in July urged Warsaw to respect rulings by the country's Constitutional Tribunal, issuing a set of recommendations and giving Warsaw three months to comply.

But Szydło told a press conference on Thursday her government would not "introduce into the Polish legal system any recommendations that are incompatible with the interests of the Polish state, which are not compatible with the interests of Polish citizens.”

Her comments were the latest salvo in an ongoing row between Warsaw and EU politicians who have accused Poland’s conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party of eroding democracy and rights since coming to power last year. PiS has denied such charges.

Three-month deadline

With a three-month deadline for Warsaw to provide a response to the European Commission expiring on Thursday, Szydło declared that Poland would reply to the EU’s executive body “in due time.”

She added that “for us it is incomprehensible for the legal changes we are introducing in Poland, in accordance with Polish legislation, to be constantly undermined.”

The commission said in July it believed that there was “a systemic threat to the rule of law in Poland.”

It called on the Polish government to publish the Constitutional Tribunal’s December judgments on the nomination of judges, alongside a March ruling, when the court said changes pushed through at the end of last year by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party prevented the tribunal from working “reliably and efficiently.”

(pk)

Source: PAP

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