By 
09-05-2024
Innocenti Chiara
Europe Researcher,
Global Human Rights Defence.
On May 6th, the European Commission notified its intention to close the rule of law procedure against Poland due to a positive reversal of the trend recently inaugurated by the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The withdrawal of Article 7 TEU, once it gets the green light of Member States within the European Council, will represent a crucial breakthrough for Poland and its people and an extraordinary achievement for the European Union as a whole.
This decision crowns the efforts of Mr. Tusk, who, upon taking the reins of government as prime minister last year, recognised the EU-Poland disputes to be a major point on the agenda, right away striving to adopt corrective measures to address the issue. After years of misgivings over the compliance of Poland with EU requirements, Mr. Tusk eventually presented before the EU institutions an action plan inclusive of nine bills, which are specifically designed to restore the independence of the judiciary and strike the fair division of powers demanded to serve on the European Community.
The discord between Brussels and Poland originated a long time ago, after a hard-right, Eurosceptic Party came to power in 2015 and thirteen reforms jolted the structure of the domestic justice system. These adjustments, massively affecting the Constitutional Tribunal, Supreme Court, ordinary courts, National Council for the Judiciary, prosecution service, and National School of Judiciary, soon came under attack by the European Commission, as they proved susceptible to enable the local legislature and executive to interfere in the composition, functioning, and decisions whatsoever of the judicial branch. On December 20th, 2017, the College of Commissioners submitted the Reasoned Proposal for the attention of the European Council, urging for a decision to be taken under Article 7 (1) of the Treaty on European Union, because “a clear risk of serious breach” of one of the major Union’s fundamental values – the rule of law – was detected. Following this, a new Rule of Law Recommendation complementing the relevant previous three documents was issued, in an effort to call the Polish authorities to concrete actions. Over time, the European Commission, pending that unanimity within the Council that is necessary to establish the existence of the proposed violation, moved on in its infringement procedure referring the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) adducing a blatant violation of the EU law. The legal concerns of the commissioners, then, were grounded on the retirement regime that Poland introduced with the Law on the Ordinary Courts, which was unequally impacting the retirement age of judges depending on their gender. While for male judges the minimum age was set at 65 years old, for women it was fixed at 60, which the Commission held to be in open contradiction with both Article 157 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), and Directive 2006/54 on gender equality in employment.
As in the case of Hungary, initially, Poland seemed to be failing to find a resolution. This meant the European Council had to consider locking in a stalemate because of the extreme difficulty in reaching unanimity on its political level. Consequently, the announcement that the European Commission has unexpectedly issued today to declare the withdrawal of the Article 7 procedure in respect of Poland, cannot help but rekindle the hope of those who fervently crave for the completion of an entirely democratic European plan. The momentous event indicates that, within the new Polish political reality, there is no longer a “clear risk of a serious breach of the rule of law”, and consequently, that the EU defensive mechanism put in place throughout these years has what it takes to function. The action plan that Mr. Tusk presented before the EU institutions was deemed to credibly fulfil the requests in a short time. This breakthrough, on top of epitomising a political victory for the Prime Minister, will necessarily go down in history as “a testament to the resilience of the rule of law and democracy in Europe”, as commented by the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.
Sources and further reading:
Liboreiro, J. (2024, May 6). Brussels moves to close rule of law procedure against Poland. Euronews. Retrieved May 6, 2024, from
(2024, May 6), Commission intends to close Article 7 (1) TEU procedure for Poland. European Commission. Retrieved May 6, 2024, from
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_2461.
(2017, December 20), Rule of Law: European Commission acts to defend judicial independence in Poland. European Commission. Retrieved May 7, 2024, from
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_17_5367.
(2023, December 11), Hungary’s rule of law disputes with Brussels explained. Politico. Retrieved May 7, 2024, from
https://www.politico.eu/article/hungary-rule-of-law-eu-summit-viktor-orban-brussels.
Wahl, T. (2020, May 19), Rule of Law Developments in Hungary. Eucrim. Retrieved May 6, 2024, from
https://eucrim.eu/news/rule-law-developments-hungary.
(2022, September 15), MEPs: Hungary can no longer be considered a full democracy. News European Parliament. Retrieved May 6, 2024, from
(2020, October 7), Parliament demands a legally binding, effective mechanism to protect EU values. News European Parliament. Retrieved May 7, 2024, from
Wlodarczak-semczuk, A. (2024, February 20). The EU welcomes new Polish government’s plan to ‘restore rule of law’. Reuters. Retrieved May 7, 2024, from
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/polish-justice-minister-present-rule-law-action-plan-brussels-2024-02-20.
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