Poland under fire over challenge to supremacy of EU law

BRUSSELS, Oct 19 (Reuters) – Poland’s prime minister repeatedly came under criticism during a tense debate in the European Parliament on Tuesday, with the EU’s chief executive warning Warsaw that its challenge to the supremacy of the 27-nation bloc’s law would not go unpunished.

“Your arguments are not getting better. You’re just escaping the debate,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, visibly exasperated with Poland’s Mateusz Morawiecki after more than four hours of back-and-forth.

Von der Leyen said a ruling by Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal last week that parts of European Union law are incompatible with the Polish constitution was “a direct challenge to the unity of the European legal order”.
She laid out three options for a response to the Polish court’s attack on the primacy of EU law, ranging from legal action to a cut in funding and suspension of voting rights.

Brussels has long complained that the Polish government is undermining the independence of its judiciary, but the court ruling has turned a stand-off into a full-blown crisis, raising fears that Poland could eventually leave the bloc.
Poland’s ruling nationalist Law and Justice party says it has no plans for a “Polexit” and - unlike Britain before its Brexit referendum in 2016 - popular support for membership of the EU remains high in Poland.

In an open letter sent before his appearance at the EU assembly in Strasbourg, France, Morawiecki complained of EU mission creep that would lead to a “centrally managed organism, governed by institutions deprived of democratic control”.

He doubled down on that in the parliament debate on Tuesday, accusing the bloc of overstepping its authority.
“EU competencies have clear boundaries, we must not remain silent when those boundaries are breached,” he said. “So we are saying yes to European universalism, but we say no to European centralism.”