This year, the European Union will transfer the first financial aid of 5 billion euros to Poland, which until now has been largely frozen due to democratic backsliding, the head of the community’s executive Ursula von der Leyen and the country’s new prime minister, Donald Tusk, said.

Tusk promised to restore the rule of law in the EU’s largest eastern country after the expulsion of the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which has been at war with the EU for nearly a decade over democratic rights, Reuters and Agerpres news agencies reported.

“I welcome the commitment to put the rule of law at the top of your government’s agenda,” von der Leyen said after meeting Tusk in Brussels.

Announcing the first transfer, which is part of an EU program to help the energy transition away from fossil fuels and does not have the EU bloc’s usual rule of law conditions, the EC president said more money would come as Poland restores an independent judiciary. . “We will have to make up for lost time,” she said.

Now Poland wants to join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office

Ursula von der Leyen also welcomed Warsaw’s bid to join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), which PiS rejected.

Welcoming what he joked was a Christmas present from the EU executive, Tusk said Poland would restore democratic institutions and play a more active role in Europe, another shift seen in Warsaw after years of deepening PiS isolation.

“It will continue,” he wrote on social networks.