Dare Poland stand up to the EU? The leader of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party Jaroslaw Kaczynski announced on Saturday that the country’s controversial disciplinary chamber for judges, the subject of a long-running dispute with the bloc over the ‘rule of law’, will be disbanded. The climbdown seems at first glance to be a humiliating defeat for the Polish government in the face of pressure from Brussels.
The European Court of Justice gave Poland until 16 August to disband the disciplinary chamber. Politicians in Warsaw say the chamber is a means to root out corruption but the ECJ believes it undermines the independence of the Polish judiciary. With the EU threatening to withhold funds from Poland, the case was an early example of Brussels’s new strategy of frightening misbehaving member states with the prospect of financial punishments.
The method seems to be working. After the EU’s threats the head of Poland’s Supreme Court froze
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