Three Renew MEPs criticize European Commission president for giving green light to Polish reconstruction plan – 79 votes needed to vote
Three members of the European Parliament Liberal Group, Renew Europe, call for a vote on motion of censure against the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, criticizing her for giving the green light to the Polish reconstruction plan despite the violations of the rule of law by Warsaw.
To put to the vote the text of the motion of censure, which bears the signatures of Dutch Sophie in Veld, former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and Spanish MEP Luis Garricano, vice-president of the Renew Group, one tenth of MEPs (ie 70 signatures).
If the Ursula von der Leyen“If we continue to refuse to seriously apply the rule of law to the rule of law, we will withdraw our support for it,” said Guy Verhofstadt.
The Commission on Wednesday gave the green light to Poland’s 35.4 billion-euro reconstruction plan, which has been frozen for more than a year due to violations of the rule of law, especially the independence of the judiciary, by Warsaw.
The three MEPs consider the Warsaw announcements to be insufficient, concerning the removal of a judge and the vote in the Polish parliament to abolish the disciplinary body that was to oversee judges and was established in the context of a broad judicial reform that affected the independence of the judiciary. The green light of the Commission was based on these announcements.
The conditions requested by the Commission are reduced to the requirements of the Court of Justice of the European Union and do not respond to the refusal of the Polish authorities to recognize the supremacy of European law over national law, while Warsaw “shows no intention”. ..) to fully restore the independence of the judiciary, says Sophie in Veld, accusing Ursula von der Layen of “creating a huge political problem”.
During the vote in the Commission, two key executives, the Danish Margaret Vestager (Renew Europe) and the Dutchman Frans Timmermans (Social Democrats)both executive vice-presidents, opposed the ratification of the Polish reconstruction plan.
“The Commission is aware that the solutions announced by the Polish authorities are purely decorative,” Guy Verhofstadt wrote in a letter to his political group.
For a motion of censure to be approved by the European Parliament, it must secure two-thirds of the votes of the MEPs present.
Officials and representatives of the political groups did not comment on the motion of censure in view of the group meetings in Strasbourg this afternoon.
