Thread by @lugaricano

.@RenewEurope together with the other main groups in @Europarl_EN sent @vonderleyen a letter today asking for the rejection of the Polish recovery plan. A thread on why and how to do it 👇 1/8

https://twitter.com/RenewEurope/status/1460541808996495361

Forget “Polexit”. For all the excitement the newest buzzword has caused, Warsaw´s ruling party has no intention of taking Poland out of 🇪🇺. The EU is stuck with an unruly Member. That is why @EU_Commission must take action and reject its recovery plan. 2/8

The EU is not powerless. Brussels has financial leverage. Poland is one of the biggest recipients of EU regional funds. Remember the LGBT free zones? Polish regions are dismantling them for fear of losing access to EU money. 3/8 dw.com/en/polish-prov…

But that is not the most important stick @vonderleyen can yield. This is where the EU´s recovery money comes in. Poland is eligible to receive €36 billion euros if its recovery plan gets approved. But for the past six months, the Commission has refused to green-light it. 4/8

The uncomfortable truth for Warsaw´s ruling party is that all plans have to comply with the terms and conditions of the EU´s recovery fund. And the PiS recovery plan does not. Why? Because of this pass-or-fail test included in the Recovery and Resilience Facility Regulation. 5/8

It´s as simple as this: if Poland´s courts cannot be trusted, the EU´s money cannot be protected. How can you expect Warsaw to combat corruption without an independent judiciary? How can you do that if you are both a judge and an interested party? 6/8

Warsaw´s legal secession comes at a cost. Its illegitimate Constitutional Tribunal denied the primacy of EU law. So the commitments included in its recovery plan are legally meaningless. As a result, the Commission can only reject the PiS recovery plan 7/8

There is no room for compromise. @vonderleyen must uphold the law. @Europarl_EN is united in demanding this happens. And we will remain vigilant to make sure it does. 8/8