WARSAW (Reuters – Poland’s prime minister stated Friday that Poland had made good progress in discussions with the European Commission regarding unblocking COVID-19 Recovery Funds. He also said that he was hopeful of reaching a settlement.

Brussels is yet to approve Warsaw’s National Recovery Plan. This plan, required to unlock the funding of 36 billion euro ($40.89billion), has been blocked by Brussels due to a dispute about judicial reforms that the bloc claims undermine independence.

Mateusz Morawiecki stated that “the chances after today’s talks have slightly improved”, while insisting that it was still to be seen whether an agreement can be reached in the coming weeks.

Morawiecki had just met Ursula von der Leyen (President of European Commission) earlier in the day.

However, the Commission did not comment whether or not it agreed with Morawiecki’s assessment that Poland had better chances of accessing the EU recovery funds after the meeting.

On Wednesday, the European Union’s highest court cleared the way for its executive to reduce billions of euro in EU funds to Poland/Hungary. Warsaw and Budapest challenged a new EU sanction that would stop funding members who break European laws.

The dispute between Poland and Poland is currently focused on the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court. It has been criticized as a politicised entity that penalizes judges for opposing Warsaw’s judicial reforms.

EU’s supreme court demanded its dissolution and ruled last October that Poland had to pay one million euro per day in fines because it was maintaining the EU.

Both Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS), a ruling party of nationalists, and President Andrzej Da, an ally to the government, proposed legislation to end the impasse.

Critics say that both sets of suggestions fail to address the underlying problem, which is the politicization of judiciary as the Disciplinary Chamber embodies.

Poland will continue to implement its National Recovery Plan despite the COVID Recovery Funding Ban.

Morawiecki declared that “the first tenders will begin soon and the money to their implementation has been secured.” “I believe that the EU will reimburse it in the future.

($1 = 0.8804 euros)