Wednesday, February 16, 2022

PM: EU institutions are expanding their competences


 On Wednesday, the Court of Justice of the EU dismissed the challenges brought by Hungary and Poland concerning the conditionality mechanism which makes the use of financing from the EU budget conditional on the respect by the Member States of the rule of law. "This mechanism has been adopted on the correct legal basis and is consistent with the procedure laid down in Article Seven of the Treaty on European Union and does not exceed the limits of the competences conferred on the Union, and respects the principle of legal certainty,” the judges of the CJEU concluded.

"I was not particularly surprised by the CJEU judgment, it is another step in which the EU institutions are expanding their competencies; this is a very disturbing and dangerous process" - said Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

 He stated that the EU institutions themselves set the limits of their competencies. "It shouldn't be like that. The limits of competencies are strictly defined in the treaties," - he added.

"The process of expanding competences is very disturbing; it is extremely dangerous. This is one of the many judgments that adds a chapter to this book on expanding competences" - said Morawiecki.

Morawiecki pointed out that, according to the CJEU judgment, the provisions of the regulation regarding the conditionality mechanism may be used only in the event of a breach of the quality of budget implementation. He also pointed out that the EU institution OLAF, which verifies the quality of the funds spent, stated that Poland has almost 4 times less irregularities in spending EU funds than the EU average.

"It is good that the CJEU agreed with our interpretations," - he added.