NGOs are suing the EU Council because of Poland

NGOs bringing together judges and law professors are suing the Council of the European Union because, according to them, EU ministers illegally approved recovery funds for Poland. On August 28, four non-governmental organizations sued the Council of the European Union before the European Court of Justice, according to Mandineren.

The action was initiated by four NGOs, the European Association of Judges, the Association of European Administrative Judges, Judges for Judges and Magistrats Européens pour la Démocratie et les Libertés (MEDEL).

The missions of the NGOs have in common the fact that all four have undertaken to protect judicial independence and impartiality throughout the EU. In three of the four NGOs, a judge of Polish nationality is also active. The four NGOs are supported by a fifth organization sponsored by the Open Society Foundations.

The procedure was initiated because, according to the NGOs, the ministers of the European Council wrongly decided that Poland had fulfilled its rule of law milestones. The precedent for this is that the European Commission positively evaluated Poland's recovery and resilience building plan.

Accordingly, the purpose of the lawsuit is to annul the decision entitling Poland to 35.4 billion euros. For this to be successful, NGOs must first of all prove their "personal and direct involvement" before the European Court of Justice.

The purpose of the lawsuit may also be to prevent Poland from being paid the amount determined by the Council of the European Union as long as the lawsuit is ongoing. This assumption is also confirmed by Guy Verhofstadt's Twitter post , in which the liberal politician writes the following:

"Welcome to the start of a new political year in which Europe's old political problems continue to rest on the table... No matter how important a role Poland plays in helping Ukraine, it will NOT receive EU recovery money unless it fully restores the rule of law!"

Verhofstadt's Twitter post revealed that lobbyist law professors are also trying to serve political goals. The politician's post refers to the Twitter page of the NGO The Good Lobby Profs. The NGO celebrated the "precedential" judicial initiative in a press release, and also stated in its post that it intends to act as its "spearhead" in the future.

Gergely Dobozi's entire article on Mandiner .

Photo: Mateusz Wlodarczyk / NurPhoto via AFP