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REUTERS
WARSAW
IT will be difficult for Poland to offer further concessions to the European Commission in a dispute over the country's judicial reforms, Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said on Tuesday.
The EU executive on Monday gave Poland until late June to settle the row over the independence of its courts that threatens Warsaw's future access to funding from the bloc.
"As it stands for now, what Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki agreed with Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has been more or less implemented and it is hard to seek the possibilities of further concessions,"Czaputowicz told Trojka public radio.
Poland's right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party government and the Commission have been at loggerheads for two years over rule of law standards.
In March, Poland started making the first concessions, putting some modest checks on the powers of the justice minister over dismissing court presidents and equalising the retirement age of judges.
In May, in new concessions, the lower chamber of parliament approved a bill that will limit the ability of Poland's revamped supreme court to effectively overturn past court verdicts. The bill still awaits approval from the Senate and President Andrzej Duda, an ally of PiS.
Frans Timmermans, deputy chief of the Commission, welcomed recent progress in negotiations with Warsaw but said more needed to be done.
