Lack of independence hamstrings Polish competition bureau, EU court rules

LUXEMBOURG (CN) — The EU’s second-highest court ruled for the first time Wednesday that systemic problems with rule of law in Poland may go beyond the country’s court system. 

While a copy of the decision was not available in English as of press time, the matter stems from a trucking company's 2016 complaint about market dominance.  

Sped-Pro, which is based in Warsaw, alleged that the mostly state-owned rail operator PKP Cargo refused to agree to a multiyear contract under reasonable conditions. Sped-Pro claimed that, as the largest rail freight company in Poland, PKP Cargo was using its control of the market to drive up the cost the freight transport. 

The EU’s competition authority rejected the complaint, arguing that the Urząd Ochrony Konkurencji i Konsumentów, the Polish Office for the Protection of Competition and Consumers, was best positioned to resolve the disagreement. Sped-Pro did not drop the matter, telling the European General Court in Luxembourg that the lack of impartial judicial oversight meant that the competition authority wasn’t objective. 

On Wednesday, the court’s 10th Chamber agreed, finding that the commission should have considered the deteriorating rule of law situation in Poland before rejecting the complaint. “The Commission, before rejecting a complaint, must ensure that the national authorities are able to safeguard the complainant's rights in a satisfactory manner,” the court wrote. 

The decision comes only a day after the EU announced it would withhold payments to Poland over the country’s refusal to pay a daily fine imposed by the European Court of Justice last year. Warsaw is supposed to fork over €500,000 ($570,000) per day for failing to shut down the open-pit brown coal mine Turów, which the neighboring Czech Republic says is polluting its drinking water. 

Tensions between the Central European country and the EU have been escalating as the country’s far-right Law and Justice Party, headed by Polish president Andrzej Duda, increasingly takes control over the country’s legal system through a series of judicial reforms. The EU’s highest court has also fined Poland $1.2 million per day for ignoring orders to undo changes to a disciplinary chamber that made the process of disciplining judges more political. In response, Poland’s Constitutional Court ruled that national regulations trump EU law. 

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