Ruling Party Makes Another Push For EU Funds Despite Familiar Headwinds

Poland's ruling Law and Justice party is making another attempt to pass court reforms needed to unlock EU funding as parliament resumes work on the critical bill today.

• Work on the legislation has been at a deadlock amid pushback from junior coalition party Solidarna Polska and President Andrzej Duda, as well as an effectively noncommittal stance of the parliamentary opposition, which is planning to table its own amendments.
• The initial plan to fast-track work on the legislation and adopt it before Christmas failed, as the President expressed his reservations and said he did not participate in drafting the legislation, hinting that he might veto it in its current form.
• Onet reported this morning that the ruling party decided to make another attempt at passing the court law, even as sources told the news website that "almost nobody" in Law and Justice believes that Poland will receive its allocation of recovery funds.
• According to the Onet report, Prime Minister Morawiecki's opponents within Law and Justice are doubting whether the European Commission would keep its end of the bargain, while there is broad consensus that building majority support for the bill will be very difficult.
• In the morning round of interviews, the Prime Minister's aides sought to pressure MPs into supporting the legislation, as they shifted the responsibility for unlocking EU funding onto the opposition. Meanwhile, opposition leaders confirmed they would not back rejecting the bill in the first reading and support further legislative work.