As part of the Report’s preparation, the European Commission invites stakeholders to provide contributions through a targeted consultation. The Commission encourages the involvement of civil society organizations (CSOs) in this process. Indeed, many CSOs invest significant capacity, resources, collective intelligence, and expectations into it. Thus, the Report could create an important space for dialogue on the rule of law, both at the EU and national levels. However, this potential is not fully exploited or developed. Ultimately, the Report is only a tool to capture important developments; it lacks measures to act and to assess how it contributes to improving the rule of law in Europe.
This paper aims to enhance the effectiveness of the processes involved in creating, publishing, promoting, and monitoring the Report’s recommendations. Developed with inputs from organizations hailing mostly from the Central and Eastern European region and involved in the day-to-day work around the Reports in their countries and at the EU-wide level, the paper reflects discussions from a workshop held in Brussels in April 2024. The recommendations herein emerge from a practical assessment of the entire process.
Compiled with a genuine interest in supporting the Report’s preparation and engaging CSOs from CEE countries, this paper seeks to improve honest dialogue on the rule of law. Consequently, it may come across as critical, focusing deliberately on procedural weaknesses without diminishing the Report’s importance as a tool—a point well acknowledged by the authors.
The ensuing introduction outlines challenges that CSOs experience in their work on the Report, followed by recommendations to the European Commission and civil society organisations.
The abuse of power in Poland, including corruption, is a complex, systemic phenomenon that escapes narrow definitions or criminal code regulations. Since coming to power in 2015, the ruling party has steadily laid the foundation for grand corruption, understood as a monopoly on power, arbitrary decisions, lack of transparency and accountability, and particularism (including political clientelism), with the particularistic redistribution of public goods (such as posts or funds) aimed at satisfying the party base’s interests.
Experts and researchers studying the quality of public life are aware that this is a growing problem and that it results from the conscious policy of Law and Justice (PiS in Polish) party, which ruled Poland until the 2023 elections. It involved the steady lowering of the standards of the rule of law; above all, abandoning the principles of the separation of powers and the rule of checks and balances. The executive – or more precisely, its party base – became dominant. Parliament was steadily weakened; in particular, when it comes to providing a check on the executive and, especially in the parliament dominated by PiS, a place for public debate and exchanging views on state policy. Since 2015, we were observing a constant attack on the third branch of government in Poland: the judiciary. The ruling party increased pressure on judges, seeking to limit their autonomy and independence, and striving to subordinate the judiciary to its priorities. The prosecutor’s office, a key state body in the fight against corruption and abuse of power, was almost completely subordinated to the authorities. Restoring the model of prosecutor’s office in which a politically-appointed minister is also prosecutor general, and expanding his powers in a way that enables him to freely interfere in any rank-and-file prosecutor’s work, created a structure in which the people with political control over the prosecutor’s office and law enforcement agencies can remain unpunished. Decisions on whether or not prosecutors investigate suspected crimes involving politicians and officials from the ruling party – and whether or not these cases were even considered in court, where they can finally be clarified – were political. Citizens and watchdogs tasked with keeping the authorities in check are deprived of basic tools, such as guarantees concerning access to public information. People who have the courage to speak out about abuse in the workplace – in other words, whistleblowers – are still not protected by law. The authorities are in no hurry to improve their situation, which could be accomplished by implementing EU regulations. All this adds up to a crisis of the rule of law, broadly understood. In these circumstances, it is difficult to speak of the state’s resilience to abuse of power and corruption.
This analysis seeks to highlight the complexity of contemporary corruption and how difficult it is to counteract abuse by the people in power. Our aim is to stimulate public debate and, in doing so, raise awareness of just how dangerous abuse and corruption are.
