Warsaw and Brussels are united to defend the European Union’s external border, but analysts doubt that this teamwork on the migration crisis will have an impact on the deep dispute over judicial independence in Poland.
For years the EU has viewed Poland as a problem child due to controversial legal reforms introduced by the nationalist government which Brussels says undermine the rule of law while Warsaw says they are meant to eradicate corruption among judges.
The confrontation escalated in October when the Polish Constitutional Court challenged the rule of European law and the EU Court of Justice ordered Warsaw to pay a million euros penalty per day for not having suspended a “disciplinary chamber” at the heart of the quarrel.
But these tensions seem to have taken a back seat since the recent emergence of the migration crisis on the Belarusian-Polish border, with Warsaw and Brussels working together to try to resolve the problem.
Thousands of migrants, mainly from the Middle East, camp at this border. The West accuses Minsk of orchestrating the crisis to divide the EU and in retaliation for European sanctions, which Minsk denies.
“The crisis has certainly aroused some sympathy in the EU for Poland. The government has been supported by the Commission and most Member States have expressed their solidarity, ”political scientist Marcin Zaborowski told AFP.
“European public opinion is also largely on the side of Warsaw on this issue, in particular because of the rise of anti-immigration sentiments,” said Zaborowski, director of the Globsec think tank.
If the urgency to secure the border has eclipsed the conflict over the rule of law, all signs seem to exclude, according to observers, the possibility that Brussels will forget the past.
“There is no connection between showing understanding for Warsaw’s position in this border conflict and other issues that continue to plague Poland’s relations with the EU,” Mr. Zaborowski. The conflict “over the rule of law is still not resolved and there is no indication that there is a backsliding on the part of the European institutions”.
“No indulgence”
To date, due to the decline in democratic standards criticized in Warsaw, Brussels refuses to grant the 36 billion euros claimed by Poland as part of the EU stimulus funds linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The leaders of the main political groups in the European Parliament sent a joint letter this week to Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen, urging her to keep the money blocked until Poland gives in.
European Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders is due to visit Warsaw on Thursday and Friday.
“No indulgence will be granted to the (Polish) government because of the onset of the border crisis,” political scientist Stanislaw Mocek told AFP.
“The EU does not want to set a precedent with Poland by rewarding it in some way for illegal actions,” said Mocek, director of the Collegium Civitas University in Warsaw.
“On the other hand, the border of the EU is threatened and, on this subject, there is a preponderant consensus that we must defend it. These are two separate problems, ”he stressed.
According to Mocek, Poland does not seem to be backing down in the legal conflict and has expressed the wish to manage the migration crisis as it sees fit “without significant help from EU countries or the European Commission” .
“So there is also a certain reserve, which is why I think there will not be a more lenient approach to the previous problems,” he said.