EU Justice Chief Says Block to Use Rule-of-Law Tool ‘in Days’

The EU has been hinting for a while it may soon trigger the conditionality mechanism, which withholds payments from the budget — as well as its 750 billion-euro pandemic recovery package — to member states accused of democratic backsliding. “It’s a question of days or weeks, maximum,” EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said in an exclusive interview with Bloomberg Television when asked when the bloc would use the tool. More broadly when it comes to Poland, he added, “For the moment we’re trying to build the most robust file possible to react.”