(Bloomberg) -- The European Union is coming closer to unblocking access to some of the €60 billion ($65.7 billion) in stalled funding for Poland despite a political standoff, Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said.

“There is a lot of willingness to engage from the new government in actually addressing rule-of-law issues including judiciary reforms, so we hope that we will be able to make progress soon with the Polish resilience and recovery plan and with the first payment,” he told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday.

The bloc’s legal experts are still evaluating the Polish steps, but the overall feeling is quite positive, an EU official said.

The reform is at the center of a long-running battle with the commission over the rule of law in Poland. Overcoming the tensions would give Warsaw access to the funding, which has been suspended over accusations of eroding democratic standards.

The commission, the EU’s executive arm, is “working very intensively with Polish authorities,” Dombrovskis added ahead of a meeting of the bloc’s finance ministers.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s new pro-European government is at odds with President Andrzej Duda, who recently blocked the dismissal of a top prosecutor, complicating the premier’s bid to overhaul the judiciary.

Over the past week, Duda and Tusk have clashed over two fugitive lawmakers who sought shelter in the presidential palace before being arrested; a top court moved to quash the government’s effort to probe the central bank chief; and thousands gathered in the streets of Warsaw to protest Tusk’s new government in a demonstration organized by the nationalist Law & Justice party, which was toppled from power after the October contest.

“There is goodwill both from Poland and from the EU,” Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni told reporters in Brussels, adding that milestones on judiciary independence cannot be ignored.

Diplomats said Tusk may be able to meet the EU’s demands by using alternative steps such as executive orders and ministerial decisions if they can’t get legislation past the president.

--With assistance from Kamil Kowalcze, Sonja Wind, Ewa Krukowska and Natalia Ojewska.

(Updates with comment from economy commissioner in last paragraph.)

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