Poland’s prime minister Beata Szydło is to face MEP’s later amid concerns over the state of the rule of law there. It looks set to be quite a
ADVERTISEMENTPoland’s prime minister Beata Szydło is to face MEP’s later amid concerns over the state of the rule of law there.
It looks set to be quite a showdown.
The head of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, compared the situation there to a coup d’etat last month.
Loyalists from the ruling Law and Justice party have rebuffed the EU’s criticisms .
Ryszard Legutko, a Polish conservative MEP, said that “the EU has been applying consistently is that of double standards.”
“If you look at Luxembourg. Luxembourg is the country where they are trying to liquidate the constitutional court and nobody here talks about Luxembourg,” he added.
The European Commission is investigating Poland for alleged breach of the EU’s rule of law regulations; the EU executive has opened a probe into media and judicial reforms that the opposition Civic Platform argue amounts to a power grab.
The European Parliament will also have a say. Dutch Liberal MEP Sophie Int’Veld will publish a report of her own in February.
“I think there are very justified concerns about the independence of the judiciary, about the new media law, i hear about other reforms that the government is undertaking in the education sector. It doesn’t look good,” she said.
The hearing at the European Parliament in Strasbourg comes after the president of Poland, Andrzej Duda, held talks with high-ranking EU officials in Brussels on Monday.