(Observer News)
After more than a month of "war of words" with Poland over legal priority, the EU has taken official action. On October 27, local time, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the highest judicial body in the European Union, announced that Poland would be fined up to 1 million euros (about 7.416 million yuan) per day.
The Deputy Minister of Justice of Poland protested for the first time, saying that this was the EU's "usurpation and extortion" against Poland. Bloomberg said the amount of the daily fine was a record, and the exchange rate of the Polish currency Zloty against the euro fell to a low in nearly three weeks after the news was released.
The Court of Justice of the European Union imposed a daily fine of 1 million euros on Poland, tweet screenshot
The Court of Justice of the European Union said Poland's fine of up to €1 million a day would be deducted directly from the EU's budget paid to the country.
According to the verdict, the record fine will continue until the Polish government agrees to comply with a previous ruling issued by the Court of Justice of the European Union ordering the immediate dissolution of a disciplinary review body specifically aimed at judges.
The body, which was established in 2017, is responsible for disciplinary oversight of judges and is given the right to deprive judges of their judicial immunity. While the Polish government insists that the institution is conducive to reforming the country's inefficient and corrupt system, critics and the EU side argue that it is a pretext for seizing control of the country's courts and undermines the independence of Poland's judiciary.
In his ruling, the Vice-President of the Court of Justice of the European Union stated that the dissolution of the disciplinary review body was necessary "to avoid serious and irreparable damage to the EU's legal order and the rights of individuals from EU law and the values on which the EU is based, in particular the concept of the rule of law)."
Bloomberg said the daily fine was a record in the history of the European Union. After the news, the Polish currency Zloty fell to a nearly three-week low against the euro. Prior to this, Poland had been the largest recipient of the EU budget, receiving more than 18 billion euros (about 133.6 billion yuan) in 2020 alone, the European News Network added.
The fine comes at a time when Poland and the European Union are locked in a long-standing dispute over the issue of legal priority.
The Polish Prime Minister (far right) and von der Leyen argue in the European Parliament, pictured from IC Photo
As early as September 8 this year, the Court of Justice of the European Union imposed a daily fine on Poland for disciplinary review bodies. At that time, Poland chose to fight back, and the Polish Constitutional Court ruled on October 7 that "Poland's constitution should take precedence over some EU laws".
As soon as this ruling came out, a fierce "war of words" broke out between Poland and the European Union. After the European Commission President and the German and French representatives released their heavy words, the European Commission also suspended Poland's use of 57 billion euros (about 424.2 billion yuan) of emergency COVID-19 assistance funds.
An anonymous EU official told AFP the rule of law issue was so "fundamental" that the front drawn around the issue risked splitting the EU. And the Associated Press commented that if these accusations and slanders continue, it could become the biggest institutional crisis facing the EU since britain decided to leave the EU five years ago.
For the court of justice of the European Union to issue a daily fine of 1 million euros, Poland's deputy minister of justice Sebastian Kaleta first protested on Twitter.
"This is usurpation and extortion"
"The Court of Justice of the European Union, in total disregard of the Polish Constitution and the decisions of the Constitutional Court, operates outside its purview and abuses the system of economic penalties and interim measures," he wrote. This was the next step after the (EU) attempted to separate Polish influence from the Polish state system, usurpation and extortion. ”
It is worth mentioning that just two days before the release of the fine ruling (25th), the Polish prime minister had spit bitterly to the British Financial Times, accusing the EU of "pointing a gun at Poland's head" and imposing legal and financial sanctions on Poland. He also made concessions at the time, promising to disband the controversial disciplinary review body by the end of the year.
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