Poles rally to defend the EU membership they fear losing

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poles gathered in cities across the country Sunday to show support for the European Union after the nation’s constitutional court ruled this week that the Polish constitution overrides some EU laws.

Donald Tusk, the top opposition leader in Poland and a former EU leader, called for the protest, casting it as an effort to defend Poland’s continued membership in the 27-nation EU.

“We have to save Poland, no one will do it for us,” Tusk said.

TVN24, an all-news broadcaster, broadcast scenes of crowds gathering in Warsaw, Krakow, Poznan and other cities with EU and Polish flags. In Warsaw, whose mayor hails from Tusk's Civic Platform party, EU and Polish flags fluttered from street posts and city buses ahead of the evening rally.

In Poland, critics of the right-wing nationalist government fear that the court ruling could lead to an eventual “Polexit,” or Poland being eventually forced to leave the EU over an impression that it is rejecting the bloc’s laws and values.

The government of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki denies that it is seeking to leave the bloc, though top members of the ruling party have recently used language suggesting that might be their aim.

EU membership is extremely popular in Poland, having brought new freedom to travel and a dramatic economic transformation to the central European nation, which had endured decades of communist rule until 1989.

The court ruling, which was issued Thursday by a court loyal to the nationalist government, marks a dramatic challenge to the primacy of EU law.

In a legal decision requested by Poland's prime minister, the tribunal held Thursday that the Polish Constitution has primacy over EU laws in some cases. Morawiecki asked for the review after the European Court of Justice ruled in March that Poland’s new regulations for appointing Supreme Court justices could violate EU law and ordered the right-wing government to suspend them.