Debate on the Situation in Poland&nbsp;during the EP Plenary session (18-21/01) in Strasbourg. Statements by Martin SCHULZ, EP President, Bert KOENDERS, Dutch Presidency of the Council of the EU, Frans TIMMERMANS, First Vice-President of the EC in charge of Better Regulation, Inter-Institutional Relations, the Rule of Law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights and &nbsp;with Beata SZYDLO, Polish Prime Minister.

Strasbourg

debate

plenary session

TIMMERMANS, Frans (NL, EC)

EU mechanism on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights (T)

EU - Poland (T)

SCHULZ, Martin (S&D, DE)

KOENDERS, Bert (NL)

SZYDŁO, Beata (ECR, PL)

Situation in Poland: extracts from the opening statements

SOUNDBITE (German), Martin SCHULZ, EP President, It has been decided to introduce that there will be a debate on the decision by the Commission to introduce a dialogue on the question of the rule of law strengthening in Poland. This is the first time such a debate is introduced in the Parliament. This is a new instrument which hasn't existed till March 2014, and has not ben evoked previously.

SOUNDBITE (English), Bert KOENDERS, EU Council Presidency, Ensuring the respect is a constant challenge to which governments must live up. And yet, we must be honest. No one country has the monopoly on virtue, and no one country has the monopoly on vices. We all have deficiencies but the true strength of our democracies is that we can identify these deficiencies debate them, acknowledge them and fix them.

SOUNDBITE (English), Bert KOENDERS, EU Council Presidency, Today's debate was triggered by the most recent measures introduced by the newly democratically elected Polish government, notably the position of the Constitutional tribunal and the governance of public media.The Council has repeatedly stressed that media freedom and pluralism are fundamental values and essential pillars of democracy. This is due to the important role and ensuring transparency, the impact on the public opinion and on the participation of citizens in the decision making process.

SOUNDBITE (English), Frans TIMMERMANS, First Vice-President of the EC in charge of Better Regulation, Inter-Institutional Relations, the Rule of Law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, The main reason for being this assessment under the 2014 rule of law framework is the situation concerning the Polish constitutional tribunal and in particular the dispute about the nomination of a number of judges of the tribunal. In principle this should be an issue for the Constitutional tribunal itself to resolve it, however, as things stand the other institutions of the Polish state have not complied with the judgements rendered by the constitutional tribunal on the mater.

SOUNDBITE (English), Frans TIMMERMANS, Media freedom and pluralism are also closely connected with fundamental rights, in particular the freedom of expression. This is why the Commission considers it necessary to asses this law in the lights of the rule of law. EU is founded on a common set of values, untrained in art 2 on the treaty of the EU, which include in particular the respect for the rule of law.

SOUNDBITE (Polish), Beate SZYD&#321;O, Polish Prime Minister, In the elections of last year the people of Poland voted in favour of our manifesto. The 'law and justice manifesto' has addressed the concerns of those citizens who after years of EU membership, after years of transformations have found difficult to get by from day to day.

SOUNDBITE (Polish), Beate SZYD&#321;O, The changes carried out, the changes to the law on Constitutional Court reflect EU standards and in no way differ from the standards from other EU Member States. We did have to change the law on the Constitutional Court because in June 2015 the outgoing parliament, the outgoing government coalition adopted a law on the Constitutional Court which was ruled unconstitutional in part by that same Constitutional Court in December 2015.

SOUNDBITE (Polish), Beate SZYD&#321;O, What we have sorted to do is to restore equilibrium. I would like to assure you, honourable members that we agreed that 8 of 15 judges should be chosen by the opposition. That is something which demonstrate the extent to which we respect the opposition, we acknowledge it's rights and that shows how different we are to the previous coalition government. In order to safeguard pluralism on the new Constitutional Court, the new Parliament has decided that the Constitutional court should rule as a full court, as is the case in many other EU Member States.

SOUNDBITE (Polish), Beate SZYD&#321;O, As regards changes to the media those changes have been undertaken by the Parliament with a view to turning public media in Poland in to a truly impartial broadcasters. No legal standards have been breached and the objective is objectivity in reporting. We seek media pluralism, we seek equality of access, and we seek honesty in the media. 

SOUNDBITE (Polish), Beate SZYD&#321;O, We are open to dialogue, we are open to talks, we are open to joint solutions to Poland's problems.