Poland 'on the path to Polexit': Supreme Court rules that EU treaties are incompatible with the constitution

 Poland could be on a path to exiting the European Union after the country's supreme court ruled yesterday that EU treaties were incompatible with the Polish constitution. 

It casts the Eastern European nation's future in the EU into doubt, six years after the UK voted to leave the bloc in 2016 and kickstarted a continent-wide debate about the role of the 27-nation bloc. 

Warsaw has long been at odds with Brussels over democratic standards and the independence of its judiciary. 

But Thursday's ruling that parts of EU law are incompatible with the Polish constitution put Warsaw and Brussels on a full collision course. 

The court was asked to consider the status of EU law by the country's ruling coalition which is dominated by the conservative EU-sceptic Law and Justice Party, and prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who leads the Law and Justice Party in parliament welcomed the court's ruling and said that the ability of Brussels to overrule the Polish government means that Poland is 'not a sovereign state'.

He argues that Brussels has 'no right to interfere' in polish affairs, echoing the arguments made in Britain by pro-Brexit leaders who were angry at European red tape restricting Westminster's ability to rule.  

However the Polish court's ruling has been met with anger in Brussels, with the  European Commission vowing to contest its conclusions and insist on the supremacy of EU law.  

That sets it on a full collision course with Poland's nationalist rulers after years of legal and political wrangling.

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, said she was "deeply concerned" by the Thursday's ruling by Poland's Constitutional Tribunal and that the executive she leads would do all in its power to ensure the primacy of EU law. 

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said Poland must 'fully and completely' implement EU law, while France's Europe Minister Clement Beaune called the ruling an 'attack against the EU'.  

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Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who requested the Constitutional Tribunal to rule on the matter, welcomed the move in a Facebook post on Friday

The move was welcomed by politicians in the UK including Conservative MP Michael Fabricant

Former conservative MEP David Bannerman said that the development means that a 'Polexit' could be viable

Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who requested the Constitutional Tribunal to rule on the matter, welcomed the move in a Facebook post on Friday.

However he sought to play down expectations that Poland could leave the European Union, saying that the process of Poland and other Central European countries joining the EU in 2004 was 'one of the highlights of the last decades'. 

'We want a community of respect and not a grouping of those who are equal and more equal. This is our community, our Union,' he wrote in the post, referring to the European Union.

'This is the kind of Union we want and that's the kind of Union we will create,' Morawiecki said in the post published in the early hours of Friday.  

Opinion polls show Poles are overwhelmingly EU-enthusiastic, with over 80 percent backing membership of the bloc that has given their country billions of euros in subsidies, turbo-charging its development.

But relations have become increasingly strained since the populist Law and Justice (PiS) party came to power.

Morawiecki earlier this year had asked the Constitutional Court to rule on the primacy of EU law following a series of rulings from the bloc's top court against Poland's disputed judicial reforms.

The Constitutional Court itself underwent controversial reforms in 2016 designed by the PiS government, leading critics both in Poland and abroad to argue it is stacked with PiS allies.

Opponents of the government lined up to criticise its approach.

Pro-EU freedom icon Lech Walesa, whose trade union activism helped overthrow the Communist regime in 1989, called for new elections in the country to "save the honour of Poland".  

Experts say that the ruling, which still has to be officially published to have legal force, could be a first step towards Poland one day leaving the bloc.

"The ruling is absolutely inconsistent with European Union law and it should simply be ignored in the judgments of ordinary courts," said Piotr Bogdanowicz from the University of Warsaw.

"Our membership of the EU is really at stake," Bogdanowicz told TOKFM radio.

Adam Bodnar, Poland's former human rights ombudsman, told TOKFM that the ruling constituted Polexit "in all but name".  

Jeroen Lenaers, a MEP for the centre-Right European People's Party, said: 'By declaring that the EU treaties are not compatible with Polish law, the illegitimate constitutional tribunal in Poland has put the country on the path to Polexit.'

EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders warned there were 'instruments' to 'reestablish the primacy of European law and the Court of Justice, as an enforcer of these decisions.'

And European Parliament President Davide Sassoli said the ruling would not go unpunished. 'The primacy of EU law must be undisputed,' he said.     

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The European Commission said the decision by the Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw (pictured) put Poland on course to leave the blocEU membership treaties say the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg is the final decision maker, meaning states agree the bloc's law has primacy over national law. 

'The primacy of constitutional law over other sources of law results directly from the Constitution of the Republic of Poland. Today (once again) this has been clearly confirmed by the constitutional tribunal,' a government spokesman wrote on Twitter.     

French European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune said the court decision constituted an attack on the European Union and that economic sanctions were an option.

'It is most serious...There is the de facto risk of an exit from the European Union,' Beaune told BFM TV on Friday, adding he did not wish for Poland to leave the EU.

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A small group of protesters gathered outside the Constitutional Tribunal on Thursday ahead of the court's ruling

Meanwhile MEPs said the ruling was 'illegitimate' because it was made by a tribunal full of the prime minister's allies. Only two of the 14 judges disputed the decision. 

Germany's Greens' MEP Terry Reintke said: 'Unfortunately, the illegitimate Polish 'Constitutional Tribunal' cannot be considered an independent judicial body.'

And Dutch MEP Sophie in 't Veld tweeted: 'A Polexit from the EU legal order seems to become unavoidable'.

The ruling has also sharply escalated a dispute between Brussels and Warsaw over the independence of courts, media freedoms, LGBT rights and other issues. 

But Poles have rejected suggestions public sentiment is leaning towards leaving the EU, with a poll on Tuesday showing 88 per cent want to remain in the bloc.   

A small group of protesters gathered outside the Constitutional Tribunal on Thursday ahead of the court's ruling.