Alice Stollmeyer, the executive director of Defend Democracy, a Brussels-based nonprofit organization, said the bloc had more important issues to tackle than infighting among members. “The E.U. can only be as strong as it is united, and when it’s not, others rejoice,” she said. “Putin must be watching with a box of popcorn.”
European Union officials and experts have warned that the repeated attacks on the judiciary by Poland’s right-wing and nationalist government could embolden other governments to follow their example.
The leaders of Lithuania and Hungary sided with Poland at the European Council on Thursday. In France, Eric Zemmour, a far-right pundit and likely candidate in the next presidential election whose popularity has been rising in recent weeks, has called for support for Poland in its “fight for liberty.”
Daniel Kelemen, a professor of European studies at Rutgers University, said challenges to the rule of law by European Union members could “grow and metastasize like a cancer.”
“If the Polish government can simply ignore the primacy of E.U. law, then other governments could ignore whatever aspect of E.U. law they say is unacceptable to them,” he said.
While tensions between Poland and the European Union have been high for years over cultural and rule of law issues, the current crisis was sparked by a refusal by Poland this summer to enact a ruling by the European Court of Justice to dismantle a disciplinary chamber that critics say has been used to dismiss defiant judges.