Poland to no longer make concessions to European Commission: President
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Poland's president underlines that his country will not go under the European Commission after the EU continued pressuring Warsaw for Brussels to give it its aid.
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Polish President Andrzej Duda
Poland will no longer make concessions to the European Commission, President Andrzej Duda said on Sunday.
The European Commission approved in June the post-COVID recovery plan for Poland, allocating over 35 billion euros ($34.9 billion) for this purpose.
The Polish plan (KPO) was approved with a delay despite the EU's continued claims that Warsaw wasn't complying with the European rule of law.
Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said later that the European Union would allocate the KPO funds to Warsaw under the condition that it implements the reforms required by the bloc.
"I will no longer take any response steps to proposals from that side. As far as I know, we have met all the conditions to receive money under the KPO. Our spending plan has been approved. We are waiting for the payment," Duda said in an interview with the Polish weekly Sieci.
According to the Polish President, a group of "leftist-liberal" politicians in Brussels wanted a change of regime in Poland.
The European Commission froze last November 100 million euros in EU funding for Poland due to Warsaw's refusal to comply with the decision of an EU court to terminate the activities of the Polish Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court.
On July 15, however, Warsaw adopted amendments to the law 'On the Supreme Court' and terminated the disciplinary chamber's work.
Despite the European Union giving Poland a lot of trouble, Warsaw has long been supportive of Brussels and NATO against Russia, perhaps to try and grow more likable among its peers.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Marowiecki in late October voiced his aspirations that Nord Stream 2 is never rendered operational, criticizing Germany over its dependence on Russian gas and calling it a "huge mistake".
"There was this huge, huge mistake made by the Germans in their policy of dependency on Russian gas," Morawiecki said during an interview with The Washington Post.
Poland had Russian energy cut off from it after Warsaw refused to comply with Moscow's demand to have its energy supplies paid for in Russian rubles. Poland was receiving around 10 billion cubic meters of Russian gas per year through the Yamal-Europe pipeline.
As for other fossil fuels, Morawiecki said, Poland was able to quickly replace Russian imports, which he called a "rare situation" in Europe.
Before the Ukraine war broke out, the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which was a joint Russian-German venture that connected both countries, made Germany Europe's gas hub and supplied EU countries with some 35% of the gas they imported from Russia.
In light of the explosions that targeted Russia's pipeline in the Baltic Sea, European Parliament member and former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski tweeted "Thank you, USA," along with a picture of the massive gas spill in the Baltic Sea. Off the shore of the Danish island of Bornholm, both pipelines sustained significant damage in what is now largely seen as a premeditated attack.
He later deleted the tweet posted in the aftermath of the explosions that affected Russia's Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines earlier in the week.
