Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has said he does not believe the EU will withhold billions of euros from the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2021-2027 for Poland over rule-of-law concerns.
On Monday, Rzeczpospolita, a major Polish newspaper, wrote that the rule-of-law dispute over changes to the Polish judicial system that led to Brussels blocking access to a post-pandemic recovery fund for Poland could also affect EU funds from the 2021-27 budget.
Reports that the judicial dispute could block all of Poland’s EU funding also appeared in the Financial Times.
“Brussels is ready to freeze payments of regional aid to Poland because of threats to judicial independence, as the stand-off over rule of law violations hangs over funding lines worth tens of billions of euros to Warsaw,” Financial Times wrote and added that “Officials confirmed that the majority of the new cohesion funds from the current period are for now inaccessible.”
“I do not think that money from the EU, the agricultural funds, cohesion funds and innovation funds are at risk,” Morawiecki said on Tuesday.
“In the next few months, the first advanced payments will most likely be released,” he added.