Displaying items by tag: Article 7

The limits of the EU’s integrationist ambitions are being exposed by a fight between Poland’s hard-line conservative government and the European Commission, because Poland is failing to maintain the ‘rule of law’. There has long been a simmering east-west split over migration, and fundamental values have burst into open warfare. Many believe this constitutional crisis could pull Europe apart. Poland is accused of reneging on the commitment it made to maintain ‘stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law and human rights’. An Article 7 sanction procedure will be triggered against Poland if it fails to address concerns over judicial reforms or starts firing Supreme Court judges. On 26 July the European Commission set a one-month deadline for the Warsaw government to ‘solve all the problems identified’ in its judicial overhaul. The commission also set a red line for Poland, ‘if it decides to fire any of the Supreme Court judges’. Poland criticised the threats from the EU to halt their voting rights in the bloc as ‘blackmail’.