MOSCOW (Sputnik) —The European Commission (EC) and Poland are close to resolving disagreements over reforms to the Constitutional Tribunal in the country, EC Vice President Andrus Ansip said Wednesday.
"There is a constructive dialogue between the European Commission and Polish government. I have got an understanding that the Polish government wants also to find way out of this situation, to find solution. And according to my understanding, we are pretty close to that," Ansip told journalists at a press conference in Brussels.
On December 28, 2015, Polish President Andrzej Duda introduced a new regulation on the Constitutional Tribunal which sparked much criticism of the Polish opposition. The reform deprived the Constitutional Tribunal of control over judges and replaced a simple majority with a two-thirds majority necessary to take a decision on constitutional matters.
After the European Commission began a preliminary review in mid-January of whether the new laws introduced by the Polish government violated of the European Union's founding principle on the rule of law, Brussels and Warsaw began consultations to resolve the dispute.
