EU, Poland seek to tone down rule of law dispute

Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo is set to visit the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday.

On January 13, the European Commission announced the beginning of a bilateral dialogue with the country’s government on the controversial reforms.

Tusk called on politicians and commentators to “calm down” and that “the interests of Poland and the European Union are basically the same”.

Mr Tusk also cautioned against a “hysterical reaction” to the changes in Poland, confirming that the issue would not escalate to the level of heads of state or be placed on the agenda of future European Councils.

Later this year in July, Warsaw is hosting a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit.

“I do not believe it’s a good idea to discuss the situation in Poland at the European Council”, Tusk declared, saying that the situation of Poland is not on the agenda of the next meeting of EU 28 leaders. It does not want to humiliate or stigmatize Poland.

“This is what happens after a change in government. Sometimes these goals are not bad – but the way he is going about it is totally wrong”.

The EU is now investigating whether it broke EU rule-of-law standards.

“The politics is polarised, but if the government fails to deliver on these promises, then that is when the trouble will really begin”, says Prof Aleks Szczerbiak, professor of politics at the University of Sussex. The project will be implemented by the New European Pipeline AG.

Much is at stake.

Poland’s largest banks PKO BP, Pekao, BZ WBK and mBank led declines among Warsaw-listed blue-chip shares on Monday, falling by up to 7 percent.

“If we are speaking about summit [of NATO in Warsaw in July], then we should observe that there is a clear and understandable signal that doors to NATO remain open”, Duda said at a joint briefing with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

The ruling Law and Justice is allied with Mr. Cameron’s Conservative Party in European politics, but there are deep concerns in Poland about Mr. Cameron’s demand to scale back benefits for EU workers, given the high number of Polish migrants to Britain over the past 20 years.