Brussels announced on Friday January 19 that Poland finally met all the criteria to receive the European structural funds intended for it. Since 2021, the country, then governed by PiS, has been deprived of these subsidies, as it is accused of violating the rule of law. But new Prime Minister Donald Tusk has made the independence of the media and the judiciary a priority.
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With our correspondent in Warsaw, Adrien Sarlat
76 billion euros from the European Union. The Poles despaired of receiving them one day, but the Commission confirmed on Friday that it is ready to release the sum. If these funds were frozen, it is because over the past eight years, the ultra-nationalist right-wing PiS government has been violating the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
In particular, the reform of the judicial system introduced in 2019, which placed the Supreme Court under the control of the ruling party, or the transformation of public media into a propaganda instrument by the PiS.
But from his arrival at the head of government in December, former President of the European Council Donald Tusk announced that he wanted to turn the page as quickly as possible. Even before his appointment, he went to Brussels to talk with his friend and ally Ursula Von der Leyen, the president of the European Parliament.
And in recent weeks, he has rushed to initiate a reform to restore independence to the public media, and to appoint a new Attorney General. Express measures, bordering on legality, which have created debate in the country. Enough to convince Europe that Poland was indeed back in the Union.