How Trump set Poland on the path to dictatorship

“I just don’t see the appetite for such measures among the member states,” says Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska, an analyst at Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank. “And it’s not just Hungary. Germany, too, will be reluctant to isolate Poland. So the Commission might well activate Article 7, but it will likely end at that.”

Gostynska notes that the Commission might take a course of action similar to the one it took when Hungary proceeded with its own purge of the judiciary in 2012. The Hungarian government forcibly retired all of the judges over 62 years old. The Commission sued—on the basis of anti-discriminatory regulations—and won. But it did not change the end result, because the judges were not reinstated. They only received compensation.

“In the end it will probably be up to the other member states. They will face a big dilemma,” says Gostyńska-Jakubowska.