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spokesman for the European Commission separately confirmed at a
news conference on Tuesday that it had received Poland's latest
explanation on the dispute, one of the bloc's many battles with
Warsaw over democratic standards.
"EU has ways to ensure payment of due fines from Poland," the
spokesman said.
Jan. 11 was the deadline for the nationalist government in
Poland to tell the Commission when and how it planned to
dismantle the Disciplinary Chamber of Poland's Supreme Court,
which the top EU court had ordered to be suspended.
Warsaw has already refused to heed the decision of the European
Court of Justice in Luxembourg, which then approved a fine of 1
million euros a day.
Two sources at the Commission, speaking separately and on
condition of anonymity, said the letter was in Polish, so it
would need to be translated before the Commission could make a
formal response.
Should it fail to satisfy the Commission - which acts as the
enforcer of joint EU laws, including on protecting the judiciary
from political meddling - one of the sources said it would send
an invoice to Warsaw, with a 45-day deadline to pay.
By then, the fine would amount to some 70 million euros, the
second source confirmed, adding that the so-called "call for
payment" would be sent to Warsaw very soon.
Asked about the case last week, a deputy Polish justice minister
accused the EU of making "illegal demands" of his country, and
said Warsaw would not give in to "blackmail".
The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party introduced the new
policing system for judges in 2017, part of a sweeping overhaul
of the judiciary widely denounced as undermining the
independence of courts and judges, a central principle of modern
liberal democracies, and of Polish and EU laws alike. ($1 =
0.8819 euros)
(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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