(ANSA) - WARSAW, 10 OTT - Tens of thousands of Poles rallied
on Sunday in defence of their country's EU membership, after
Poland's top court last week issued a landmark ruling against
the primacy of EU law. The pro-EU demonstrations were called by
former EU chief Donald Tusk, now leader of the country's main
opposition grouping, Civic Platform, who has warned of the
prospect of a "Polexit". "Tens of thousands of people in Warsaw
and in over 100 cities and towns across Poland have come to
protest what this government is doing to our homeland," Tusk
told a massive crowd in the capital awash with the EU's
star-studded blue flags. Tusk asked people to "defend a European
Poland" after a wave of criticism against the ruling both at
home and from around the European Union. Membership of the bloc
remains very popular according to opinion polls but relations
between Warsaw and Brussels have become strained since the
populist Law and Justice (PiS) party came to power in 2015. The
main bone of contention is a wide-ranging reform of the
judiciary wanted by PiS, which the European Union fears will
undermine judicial independence and roll back democratic
freedoms. The latest twist in the long-running dispute was the
ruling on Thursday from Poland's Constitutional Court, a body
which government opponents say is stacked with PiS allies and
therefore illegitimate. The ruling challenged the primacy of EU
law over Polish law in all cases by declaring key articles in
the EU treaties "incompatible" with the Polish constitution. The
court also warned EU institutions not to "act beyond the scope
of their competences" by interfering with Poland's judicial
reforms. "I'm here because I'm afraid we'll leave the EU. It is
very important, especially for my granddaughter," Warsaw
resident Elzbieta Morawska, 64, told AFP. "Britain has just left
the EU and it's a tragedy, if Poland leaves now, it'll also be a
tragedy," Aleksander Winiarski, 20, a Pole studying in England,
told AFP at the Warsaw rally. "This government has overstepped
all boundaries -- this is a mafia state," Beata, a 40-year-old
manager in a Warsaw media company who declined to reveal her
family name, told AFP. Protesters lit up a central square with
their mobile phones, sang the national anthem and chanted "We're
staying!" - 'Legal Polexit' - Brussels warned ahead of the court
judgment that the case could have "consequences" for EU pandemic
recovery grants and cheap loans for Poland. Analysts have called
the ruling a "legal Polexit", saying that it could pave the way
for Poland one day leaving the European Union. The government
has ruled out the prospect, however. A day after the ruling,
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that the process of
Poland joining the EU in 2004 was "one of the highlights of the
last decades" for both Poland and the EU. "Poland's place is and
will be in the European family of nations," he wrote on
Facebook. He said the principle of the superiority of
constitutional law over EU law had already been stated by courts
in other EU member states. "We have the same rights as other
countries. We want these rights to be respected. We are not an
uninvited guest in the European Union. And that's why we don't
agree to be treated as a second-class country," Morawiecki
wrote. The government has to make a decision to officially
publish the ruling for it to have legal force. Experts have said
that it may move cautiously in order not to imperil EU funding
and to avoid potential legal confusion as Polish courts could
choose whether to apply Polish or EU law. dt-bur/mas/har-jj
Czechs in post-vote limbo as president rushed to hospital
Prague
The Czech Republic was plunged into uncertainty on Sunday as
President Milos Zeman was rushed to hospital a day after his
ally, populist billionaire Prime Minister Andrej Babis, narrowly
lost an election. The president, who plays a critical role in
nominating any future prime minister, was taken to hospital by
ambulance shortly after meeting Babis and appeared to be
unconscious upon arrival, with someone seen holding up his head.
His doctor said he was in intensive care, while the Blesk
tabloid quoted Zeman's office head Vratislav Mynar as saying
that he "fell asleep during the transport, that's all. He wasn't
unconscious". The DNES broadsheet wrote later on Sunday that
Zeman, who has liver problems according to local media, was in a
stable condition and could spend up to three weeks in hospital.
"Even if it's Mr President, I'm not authorised to give you any
details because the patient is protected by the law," hospital
spokeswoman Jitka Zinke told AFP. Zeman's spokesman Jiri Ovcacek
said on Twitter that Zeman's hospitalisation would not
jeopardise the post-election talks. Babis is hoping to hold on
to power despite being defeated on Saturday by the centre-right
Together alliance, which has said it is ready to form a majority
government with another grouping. The president, who is
wheelchair-bound, had cast his ballot in his official residence
because of health problems less than a month after he spent
eight nights at the military hospital. Under the Czech
constitution, the authority to nominate the new prime minister
falls to the speaker of the newly elected lower house of
parliament if both houses of the body declare the president
unable to perform his duties. - 'Absolutely excited' - The
Together alliance of the right-wing Civic Democrats, the
centre-right TOP 09 and the centrist Christian Democrats won
27.79 percent of the vote, while Babis's ANO party earned 27.12
percent. The alliance would have a majority of 108 seats in the
200-seat parliament together with another grouping comprising
the anti-establishment Pirate Party and the centrist Mayors and
Independents. Together leader Petr Fiala said on Saturday that
the two alliances would only talk about a government with each
other and ask Zeman to tap him to form the government. A day
after voting in Prague, Zdenek Klima told AFP he was "absolutely
excited" with the outcome. "Owing to the new government, we will
finally be where we historically belong," he beamed. Analysts
saw the election result as a blow to populism. "It's a victory
not only for the Czech Republic, but for the whole of Europe,"
Jiri Priban from Cardiff Law School said on Czech TV. "It's a
proof that even if the populists can't be entirely defeated,
their advance can be stopped and reversed," he added. -
Communists out - Babis currently leads a minority government
with the Social Democrats, which was until recently tacitly
backed by the Communist Party that ruled the former totalitarian
Czechoslovakia from 1948 to 1989. But the Communists were ousted
from parliament at the polls for the first time since World War
II, and the Social Democrats also failed to meet the
five-percent threshold for parliament entry. The 67-year-old
Babis, a food, chemicals and media mogul, is facing police
charges over alleged EU subsidy fraud and the bloc's dismay over
his conflict of interest as a businessman and a politician. Last
weekend, the Pandora Papers investigation showed he had used
money from his offshore firms to finance the purchase of
property in southern France in 2009, including a chateau. He has
denied any wrongdoing and slammed the allegations as a smear
campaign. frj/dt/har
/ (ANSA).
© Copyright ANSA - All rights reserved