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EU Parliament sues European Commission over rule-of-law
‘inaction’ amid major row with Poland
29 Oct, 2021 13:57
The European Parliament has sued the executive branch of the EU government, the European Commission, on Friday, for its failure to use the sanctions mechanism against rule-breaking member states like Poland.
The mechanism in question was introduced in late 2020 and allows the EU to withhold funding of member states that Brussels sees as defying the rule of law. The nation currently topping the blacklist is Poland, whose conservative government has adopted a number of policies that the EU finds objectionable.
“We expect the European Commission to act in a consistent manner and live up to what President von der Leyen stated during our last plenary discussion on this subject. Words have to be turned into deeds,” EU Parliament President David Maria Sassoli said, commenting on the filing.
While Poland’s defiance of Brussels and possible withdrawal of its funding as punishment has been most visible in the news lately, other Eastern European nations like Hungary may also find themselves on the receiving end of the EU's ire.
The European Court of Justice earlier this week ordered Poland to pay a million euro (around $1.2 million) every day until it brings its judicial system in line with EU standards for the rule of law. Warsaw lashed out at the “unlawful penalties”, with Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro stating that his nation “should not pay a zloty” for the kind of justice system it chooses to have.
Can there be any doubt that George Soros' hand is behind this disgraceful display of power?
Ex-Polish president, anti-communist & Nobel Peace Prize winner
Walesa faces jail over denying links to сommunist secret police
30 Oct, 2021 21:17
Former Polish President Lech Walesa was summoned to the nation’s prosecutor’s office on Friday on charges of perjury in a case related to his alleged links to the socialist-era Polish secret police.
The leader of Poland’s Solidarity movement known as a pro-democracy activist, Walesa was summoned to hear the charges related to his testimony back in 2016. At that time, when confronted with documents alleging his recruitment as a secret police informant, Walesa denied he had anything to do with them and said they had been forged to smear his name.
Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), which instigated the case against Walesa back in 2016, has now stated that expert opinions and other evidence confirmed that the documents were in fact authentic. The IPN has been sticking to this position ever since 2016 as it stated they were confirmed to be genuine when it first brought the case against the politician.
Dating back to the 1970s, the documents were retrieved from the home of the widow of General Czeslaw Kiszczak, who was also communist Poland’s last prime minister. A personal file on an informant nicknamed only as ‘Bolek’ contains over 150 documents, including payment receipts and a handwritten commitment to cooperate with the socialist-era Polish Security Service alongside various reports submitted by the informant.
The Polish Prosecutor’s Office that launched the case against Walesa over the documents requested an expert opinion from the Institute of Judicial Expertise. According to the Polish media, a team of experts in the field of handwriting concluded that dozens of the documents from the file were drawn up by Walesa. The experts compared the documents to some 140 other papers personally written or signed by the former president between 1963 and 2016, the media said.
The experts’ conclusion was then published by the IPN – an institution responsible for exposing historical crimes in Poland. Perjury in Poland carries a sentence of between six months and eight years of imprisonment.
Walesa, who was the co-founder of the Solidarity movement, which brought down the socialist government in Poland, continues to deny all the accusations. In a statement posted on Facebook, he denounced the accusations against him as “shameful” and said that the charges were aimed at “downplaying his role in history.”
He also said that “the prosecutor's office is not where historical truths are established.” “The truth about those times is something for historians to decide about, and I am not afraid of history's verdict,” the former president added, maintaining that he never collaborated with the communist secret services.
He then accused the IPN of fabricating the documents at the behest of the leader of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski. The National Remembrance Institute does have some links with the ruling Law and Justice Party. It also has a history of accusing Walesa and other pro-democracy activists of helping the communists.
Walesa himself has been a staunch critic of Kaczynski as well as reforms to the media and judiciary initiated by his party after it came to power.
The former president has already been cleared of charges concerning alleged collaboration with the communist-era Polish Security Service by a special court back in 2000. He was also awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, years before the collapse of the socialist government, for his “campaign for freedom of organization in Poland” and was called a “symbol of revolt” by the Nobel Prize committee at that time.
Polish president gives green-light for new wall on border with
Belarus in bid to beat back flow of refugees & illegal migrants
3 Nov, 2021 12:55
near the village of Usnarz Dolny, Belarus. © Sputnik / Viktor Tolochko
Poland is set to build a new border wall on its eastern flank in an effort to end a sharp spike in asylum seekers attempting to cross over from neighboring Belarus, after Warsaw declared a state of emergency over the situation.
On Wednesday, the country’s president, Andrzej Duda, signed into force new legislation for the construction of the barrier, after it was backed by the national parliament. Expected to cost more than $400 million, work on the new wall will likely be completed next summer. Running close to half the length of the 400-kilometer border, it will be kitted out with both motion sensors and surveillance systems.
Warsaw has warned that around 500 people a day are attempting to cross into the country illegally, with a sharp spike in recent months. The EU has accused Belarus of laying on flights from troubled destinations like Iraq and Iran, and of encouraging would-be migrants to make the border crossing.
Officials in Brussels have claimed that the country’s embattled leader, Alexander Lukashenko, is “weaponizing” desperate people in a bid to put pressure on the EU, in response to sanctions imposed by the bloc in the wake of Belarus’ disputed presidential election last year and subsequent crackdown on the opposition. Lukashenko insists his government simply is no longer prepared to stop migrants from reaching the border.
Just last week, two Polish border guards were hospitalized after asylum seekers launched an assault on a makeshift fence along the demarcation line, hoping to cross into the EU. According to Warsaw, the “attempts of violent crossing into Poland were thwarted” but the two officers had been injured by a crowd throwing branches and stones. Officials allege that Belarusian soldiers, wearing civilian clothes, were assisting the crowd.
Lithuania, which also borders Belarus and has seen a similar rise in the number of illegal crossings, has begun work on a border fence of its own, with troops installing razor wire and stepping up their presence in the area. “The physical barrier is vital for us to repel this hybrid attack, which the Belarus regime is undertaking against Lithuania and the EU,” Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said in August.
In September, Lukashenko put forward rule changes that would tear up previous agreements with Brussels and allow his country to reject those eventually deported from EU member states for crossing the border without permission. The move “was prepared in response to the unfriendly actions taken by the EU and its member states towards Belarus,” Minsk said in a statement.
