‘We don’t want Polexit’ – Merkel moves to cool tensions at EU summit

Angela Merkel was last night facing down calls from Emmanuel Macron and other EU leaders to punish Poland in her last summit as chancellor.

Amid mounting fears the battle over rule of law could badly damage the bloc, the German chancellor called on her counterparts to cool tensions over Poland’s challenge to the primacy of EU law.

Ms Merkel urged the bloc to learn the lessons of Brexit. Her call for peace came amid threats to withhold tens of billions of euro in EU funds from Poland after the country’s constitutional court ruled its laws have supremacy over European rules – in direct contravention of the bloc’s long-standing laws.

“Germany does not want to have a Polexit. Poland’s place is in the middle of Europe,” she told the meeting, which was her 107th EU summit.

“We must not talk about how to isolate. We must try to fix the problem.”

French President Emmanuel Macron, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, and David Sassoli, the parliament’s president, have all called for Poland to be hit with punitive measures.

“We will quickly move on to the next stage, which is the determination of a serious violation of the rule of law, which requires a four-fifths majority,” a French diplomatic source said.

“This isn’t financial blackmail – it’s a response to fundamental principles, including judicial independence.”

Mr Macron met the Polish prime minister at Brussels airport before the summit and ordered him to “find a solution compatible with our principles and our common rules”, the Elysée Palace said.

According to diplomatic sources, the departing chancellor used the gathering to slow down internal EU procedures that could result in Polish funding being cut.

She held talks with Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki moments before he told leaders he would defy European Court of Justice rulings he claimed violated Poland’s national constitution.

“An avalanche of lawsuits at the ECJ won’t fix it,” Ms Merkel told reporters as she arrived at the summit in Brussels.

“It’s the question of how the individual members envision the EU. Is it an ever-closer union or is it more about the nation state? And this is certainly not only an issue between Poland and the EU, but also in other member states,” she said. “We have to find ways of coming back together.”

Poland is in breach of a number of ECJ rulings, including for failing to live up to the EU’s environmental and democratic standards.

But the country’s move to denounce the supremacy of EU law tipped many of the bloc’s leaders over the edge.

In defiance of calls from France, the Netherlands, the European Commission and the European Parliament, Ms Merkel said the bloc’s “conditionality mechanism” should not be used to freeze some €60bn of funds to Warsaw.

“It is not a rule of law mechanism, it is a mechanism to protect the financial interests of the EU,” a senior source close to the chancellor said.

Mr Rutte said: “I think we have to be tough.. here we cannot negotiate.”

Mr Morawiecki warned other leaders that undermining the Polish constitutional court’s ruling would transform the EU into a “single, centrally managed organism, run by institutions deprived of democratic control”.

“Some European institutions assume the right to decide on matters that have not been assigned to them. We will not act under the pressure of blackmail, we are ready for dialogue,” he said. He was backed by Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, who publicly came out in support of Warsaw in its battle with Brussels.

But in a letter as the leaders gathered in Brussels for their summit, European Parliament President David Sassoli said:.“A few days ago, the legal bedrock of our union was challenged.

“This was not for the first time, of course, nor will it be the last. But never before has the union been called into question so radically.”

Belgian premier Alexander de Croo said: “If you want to have the advantages of being in a club ... then you need to respect the rules. You can’t be a member of a club and say ‘The rules don’t apply to me’.”

Leaders of countries from Ireland to France urged Warsaw to come back in line.

Mr Morawiecki’s Law and Justice (PiS) party has raised the stakes in years of bitter feuds with the EU over a range of democratic principles, from the freedom of courts and media to the rights of women, migrants and LGBT people.

He has dismissed the idea of “Polexit” – leaving the bloc – and support for membership remains very high in Poland.

(© Telegraph Media Group Ltd 2021)