Poland has made little or no progress at all on a number of critical rule of law issues, the European Commission said in its annual rule of law report on July 5.

Poland has been in the Commission’s focus for years, following the takeover of power by the radical right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party in 2015. PiS’ judiciary reforms and the party’s relentless drive to control other areas of public life transformed Warsaw from a poster child of EU integration to one of the bloc’s biggest problems.

PiS says that the EU has usurped too much power over member states and is simply fighting back to ensure the Eurocrats do not limit the country’s sovereignty further.

The head-on approach has landed Poland in the EU’s top court a number of times, with hefty fines being deducted from the bloc’s funding.

Poland also still waits for the disbursement of any money from the EU’s pandemic recovery fund, which the Commission tied to progress on rule of law, the link predictably becoming another flashpoint between Warsaw and Brussels.

Poland made “no progress” on all but two counts in the Commission’s rule of law sheet, the EU executive said in the report.

Some progress only took place in “ensuring functional independence of the prosecution service from the government” and on “improving the framework in which the ombudsperson operates”.

Elsewhere, there was no progress on issues like separating the function of the minister of justice from that of the prosecutor-general, introducing lobbying rules and a standardised online system for asset declarations of public officials and MPs, or ensuring independent and effective investigations and prosecutions, the report said.

The problem with an independent judiciary is the effect of the government reforms, haggling over which had the Polish government issue rulings via the country’s Constitutional Tribunal – itself a case of the government’s extreme influence on courts – directly defying the EU’s legal order.

Poland also made no progress on “ensuring that fair, transparent and non-discriminatory procedures are adhered to for the granting of operating licences to media outlets,” the report said.

Warsaw also failed to implement “the rules and mechanisms to enhance the independent governance and editorial independence of public service media”, which the ruling party has made by design its propaganda outlets.

The report also pointed out “continued attacks on NGOs by representatives of public authorities, notably on organisations involved in providing humanitarian aid at the Polish-Belarussian border, abortion activists, and representatives of the LGBTIQ community”.

The government lambasted the report’s findings.

“As every year, the rule of law report is biased and based solely on the opinions of the opposition in Poland,” Deputy Justice Minister Sebastian Kaleta said on Twitter.

“It is another attempt to tarnish the image of Poland based on false accusations. The European Commission makes assessments of the actions of the state in many areas that are not within the competence of the EU at all,” Kaleta also said.