The move was announced by Poland's Minister for European Affairs Szymon Szynkowski vel Sęk on Friday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
EU fines Poland over rule of law
In October last year, the Court of Justice of the EU fined Poland EUR 1 million a day to prevent “serious and irreparable harm” to the bloc’s legal order and values, according to a statement at the time.
Poland was told to change its rules for disciplining judges, which Brussels said undermined judicial independence.
In an interview with TV broadcaster Polsat News, Szynkowski vel Sęk said on Friday that “there is a new legal situation, because the so-called presidential act has come into force, which has practical consequences.”
He added: “The motion for the suspension of the fines was filed yesterday, together with an extensive discussion of the new legal circumstances.”
“We will be waiting a reply from the European Commission,” Szynkowski vel Sęk also said.
On July 15, new regulations took effect in Poland under which a controversial disciplinary chamber within Poland’s Supreme Court was scrapped and replaced with a new Chamber of Professional Responsibility, the PAP news agency reported.
President Andrzej Duda, who initiated the change, said he had sought “to fix the functioning of Poland’s judicial system and give the government the means to end the rule-of-law dispute with the European Commission and unlock the EU’s pandemic relief funds for Poland."
Szynkowski vel Sęk said on Friday that the Polish government hoped the daily fines would be suspended “effective from the day the presidential act came into effect.”
He told Polsat News that "Poland would like the motion to be processed without undue delay."
Post-pandemic relief
Szynkowski vel Sęk announced that he would visit Brussels next week to discuss the release of EUR 23.9 billion in grants and EUR 11.5 billion in loans from the EU's pandemic relief fund under Poland's National Recovery Plan, the PAP news agency reported.
Brussels says that before these funds can be unlocked Poland must meet a series of rule-of-law “milestones,” including “full compliance” with the EU court ruling requiring Poland to change its rules for disciplining judges, according to news reports.
The chief of the EU's executive Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has stated that Poland has not yet made enough progress to justify releasing the funds, the PAP news agency reported.
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Source: PAP, money.pl