Poland: EU and US criticize Polish law before Russian Commission

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President Andrzej Duda signed the law into law on Monday. According to this, a commission must investigate whether officials made decisions under Russian influence between 2007 and 2022 that harmed the country’s security. It should also be possible to impose sanctions, for example to deny civil servants access to public offices for up to ten years. The committee will be composed of nine members who will be appointed by the House of Representatives. The PiS, which forms the national Conservative government, has the majority there.

Critics accuse the government of trying to discredit former prime minister and current opposition leader Donald Tusk a few months before parliamentary elections in the autumn. The State Department dismissed the comments from abroad as a “misinterpretation”.

EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders described the project in Brussels as “particularly worrying”. A commission had been created by law that could deprive Polish citizens of the right to be elected to public office without judicial review. We will not hesitate to take action. The government in Warsaw has been at odds with the European Commission over a controversial judicial reform for years.

The US State Department warned that the law “could be misused to disrupt free and fair elections in Poland”. “We share the concern of many observers that this law (…) could be used to prevent opposition politicians from standing for election without due process.”

The liberal-conservative Tusk was the head of the Polish government from 2007 to 2014 and later president of the Council of the European Union. The PiS government accuses him of making unfavorable gas contracts with Russia. Tusk leads Poland’s largest opposition party, Civic Platform. He is considered the biggest political opponent of PiS boss Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

(SDA)

Source: Blick