The EU has triggered a process that could ultimately see Poland stripped of voting rights in Brussels in an unprecedented step designed to force the country’s rightwing government to drop reforms the bloc regards as a threat to the country’s democracy.

The country’s fellow 27 member states have been advised by the European commission that the legislative programme of Poland’s government is putting at risk fundamental values expected of a democratic state by allowing political interference in its courts. “Within a period of two years a significant number of laws have been adopted – 13 in total – which put in serious risk the independence of the judiciary and the separation of powers”, the vice president of the commission, Frans Timmermans, told reporters in Brussels. “Judicial reforms in Poland mean that the country’s judiciary is now under the political control of the ruling majority. In the absence of judicial independence, serious questions are raised about the effective application of EU law.”(theguardian)…[+]