According to Politico, a potential new front in the years-long battle between the Law and Justice-led government and the European Commission has just opened up. Poland vs EU: the reason? Poland is not complying with the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights. The outcome? The Commission has suggested it can’t yet hand over money Poland is owed from the EU’s so-called “cohesion” funds, meant to offset economic imbalances across the Continent. Officials have stressed that no decision is imminent. Reimbursement for the spent cohesion funds could be at least a year away, and Poland has not yet requested its refunds. But the prospect of the Commission withholding portions of Poland’s €75 billion slice of the EU’s budget pie has sparked uproar in Warsaw. The row is also striking at the heart of what EU membership means. While many, mostly Western, EU members are calling for the Commission to get even tougher on Poland, others, including Hungary and newer members in Central and Eastern Europe, are wary of EU over-reach and the Commission meddling in domestic affairs.

Since 2004, Poland has greatly benefited from cohesion funding. Often used to build schools, hospitals, and other development projects, the money is one of the most tangible benefits of EU membership. Poland is already embroiled in a heated row with the Commission about access to the EU’s pandemic recovery funds, a separate tranche of EU funding. Receiving those funds depends on meeting a list of EU-prescribed conditions. And so far Poland has not fulfilled the bloc’s criteria on the rule of law, judicial independence, and democratic norms. In a potential breakthrough, the European Commission in June endorsed a plan allowing Poland to unlock roughly €36 billion in grants and loans from the EU’s recovery fund. But only if it met certain milestones. Yet since then, no money has actually gone to Warsaw because it has not hit the EU’s targets.

Whatever the moral underpinnings of the EU’s decision to withhold funds from Poland, the idea of the EU blocking money to an errant member state may help fan the flame of populism in Europe’s fifth most populous country. With Poland gearing up for elections next year, Poland’s increasingly fractious relationship with Brussels is likely to become one of the dominant themes across the country.