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The European Commission has said it will start unlocking Poland’s €137bn in frozen EU funds next week after Warsaw made “decisive” efforts to restore the rule of law.
Commission president Ursula von der Leyen made the announcement after meeting Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw on Friday.
“We are impressed by your efforts to restore the rule of law as the backbone of your society,” she said, in reference to reforms put forward by Tusk aimed at restoring the independence of the judiciary curtailed by the previous Polish government.
She said the commission would take decisions next week that would pave the way for the release of all of Poland’s funds blocked due to the rule of law dispute, including about €60bn that would be drawn from the bloc’s post-pandemic recovery fund.
“This is great news for the Polish people and for Europe — and this is your achievement,” she told Tusk.
Tusk welcomed the “mountain of money that we will use well”. He said €1.5bn of the initial EU disbursement would go “directly to small and medium-sized food producers”, at a time when Polish farmers have been protesting against cheap imports from Ukraine as well as the cost of implementing the EU’s green deal regulations.
Since he came to power in December, Tusk has faced a fierce domestic backlash spearheaded by the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which can rely on the country’s president and constitutional court to thwart the new prime minister’s agenda.
Polish farmers have also soured on Tusk and returned to blocking the country’s border with Ukraine, in an embarrassment for the Polish prime minister who is a steadfast supporter of Kyiv, on the eve of the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for urgent talks with Tusk to end the dispute, which he described as a “national security” matter because it “increases the threat to the supply of weapons to our warriors on the front lines”.
But Tusk appeared to snub Zelenskyy’s request for a meeting before the war anniversary on Saturday by setting a date for an in-person meeting on March 28. Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba on Thursday failed to achieve any breakthrough during meetings with Polish officials in Warsaw.
The disruption at six out of the nine cargo crossing points between the two countries has caused huge delays. More than 7,000 trucks were waiting on the Ukrainian side on Friday and nearly 2,500 had been queueing on the Polish side with waiting times now expected anywhere between 12 days and three months, according to Polish and Ukrainian customs and border agencies.
The situation is a repeat of protests that took place in late 2023, when Polish farmers joined truckers in blockading the border for more than two months to complain about cheap imports and unfair competition from hauliers in Ukraine. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion, the EU agreed to lift many of its quotas and other market access restrictions on Ukraine to help its economy stay afloat.
Tusk said on Friday that he wanted to put an end to the dispute, but did not elaborate on what measures his government could take. He also defended Polish economic interests and said the protests were not driven by anti-Ukraine sentiment.
He also called on von der Leyen to do more to help farmers cope with EU green legislation.
Brussels has already withdrawn and eased certain parts of its environmental legislation in response to heated protests across the bloc. The commission on Thursday also made proposals on how to simplify rules for EU agricultural subsidies.
But Tusk said this was “not enough” and called for “more ambitious” steps.
Von der Leyen on Friday vowed to take even more measures to “make the life of farmers easier”, including those protesting at the Polish-Ukrainian border. “Here too we listen and we act . . . We are preparing the future of agriculture in Europe.”
Additional reporting by Alice Hancock in Brussels
