When it comes to standing up to EU overreach , Poland has a set new standard of defiance. On October 7, 2021, Poland’s constitutional court determined that Polish law can supersede EU law. This comes during an ongoing conflict between Poland and the European Union.
The Polish Constitutional Tribunal made its move following Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s request to review an EU Court of Justice (ECJ) decision that initially gave the EU precedence over Polish law. According to Tyler Durden of ZeroHedge, two out of the 14 judges on the panel disagreed with the majority opinion.
“The attempt by the European Court of Justice to involve itself with Polish legal mechanisms violates … the rules that give priority to the constitution and rules that respect sovereignty amid the process of European integration,” the ruling stated.
The detached ruling class in Brussels has deemed the Constitutional Tribunal to be “illegitimate” because of the Law and Justice party’s (PiS) alleged influence on the Polish judiciary.
The Polish court’s ruling is pretty significant. The Financial Time’s Henry Foy observed that it is “Hard to overstate the importance of this ruling.” Foy added that “Poland is *the* EU success story of eastern enlargement, and the biggest recipient – by a long long way – of EU taxpayer money since 2004. And now it is saying that it refuses to recognize a fundamental part of the whole project.”
The ECJ has recently been accumulating power, with its most notable power grab legitimized by a ruling back in March that declared that the EU can compel member states to ignore certain parts of their respective national laws.
According to the ECJ, Poland’s recent move to reform the way it appoints members to its highest court violates EU law. If the ECJ’s ruling ends up being implemented, Poland could be compelled to repeal various provisions of its controversial judicial overhaul.
The EU is applying forms of economic coercion by withholding billions of euros in aid for Poland to rebuild its economy in the wake of the pandemic. The EU is doing so to send a message that it is not down with Poland’s judicial reforms.
“The primacy of constitutional law over other sources of law results directly from the Constitution of the Republic of Poland,” PiS spokesman Piotr Muller Tweeted after the Polish court’s decision. “Today (once again) this has been clearly confirmed by the Constitutional Tribunal.”
Tyler Durden noted that Poland’s decision has also faced criticism from the establishment Right in the European Parliament. The EPP took the PiS to task for the Polish court’s ruling.
“It’s hard to believe the Polish authorities and the PiS Party when they claim that they don’t want to put an end to Poland’s membership of the EU. Their actions go in the opposite direction. Enough is enough,” Jeroen Lenaers, MEP and spokesperson for the group, remarked. “The Polish Government has lost its credibility. This is an attack on the EU as a whole,” Lenaers continued.
Poland has repeatedly enraged the Eurocrats in Brussels for its measures that restrict the power of LGBTQ groups and foreign media outlets that foment division. On top of that, Poland has remained committed to preserving its national character by opposing mass migration.
It’s clear that Poland’s political profile doesn’t mesh with the EU’s global degeneracy vision. If the Poles were smart, they would continue doubling down on cooperation with the Visegrad group — where it joins Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia — and form a bloc within the EU that stands for strong borders, rational governance, and a respect for the integrity of the nation-state.
The EU is a lumbering dinosaur with a suicidal, multicultural vision. Poland would be wise to devise an exit plan, because things are only going to get rockier as most of Europe demographically implodes and it starts to get flooded by migration from Africa and the Middle East. This is one sinking ship that Poland should not be on.
