Poland told to ‘respect the rules’ of EU club in rule-of-law row
The argument now distracting and dominating the European Union is an unequal battle with the potential for far-reaching consequences.
On one side is Poland, enthusiastically supported by Hungary, and determined to prove that one of the fundamental tenets of European solidarity isn’t so fundamental after all.
On the other side is, well, just about everyone else. Some of them pressing for a conciliatory “let’s not be too harsh” debate; others wanting to go in hard.
The cause of all this anger is one of those bits of domestic news that sounds dry but has explosive potential.
Belgium Prime Minister Alexander De Croo speaks to journalists at the summit
In short, the country’s top court, acting on a request from Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, declared that, in some areas, the national constitution took precedence over European law.
And that has set great, big alarm bells ringing. Because the golden rule of EU Club is that EU Club laws always come first. They must take primacy, to coin a phrase that has popped up a lot over the past few days.
“If you want to have the advantages of being in a club, then you need to respect the rules,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said. “You can’t be a member of a club and say ‘the rules don’t apply to me’.”
The Polish Prime Minister does not agree, accusing the EU of “blackmail” because of suggestions that Poland could now face sanctions. He said his country was “ready for dialogue” but refused to distance himself from the controversial court ruling.
There is no mechanism for throwing Poland out of the EU (not that anybody would want to go anywhere near that far) and, realistically, Poland has no desire to leave, either. So instead, the question is whether the EU wants to levy a punishment.
That could mean withholding financial payments, for instance, or curtailing the country’s rights as a member state.
It wouldn’t be unprecedented – Poland is already facing daily fines of half a million Euros for continuing to extract lignite from a mine near the border with the Czech Republic in defiance of a court order. There is a suspicion that Mr Morawiecki is rather relishing his battle with Brussels.
Mr Morawiecki at a round table meeting at an EU summit in Brussels
But he is not alone. Viktor Orban, the populist Prime Minister of Hungary, has repeatedly infuriated the EU with his own policies. Here, he came to town ready to leap to Poland’s defence.
“Poland – the best country in Europe – there’s no need to have any sanctions,” he said.
“We are not building fronts here, we are fighting for issues which are important for our own nations. So we make an alliance and fight together – this is the logic we are doing here. It’s not like the cold war or something like that, creating blocs.”
So, I asked Mr Orban, did he agree – did he think that Hungarian law held primacy over EU law?
He smiled. In fact, he almost laughed. “The fact is very clear that the primacy of EU law is not in the treaty at all. So the EU has primacy where it has competences. The question is about the competences.
“What’s going on here is that – regularly – European Institutions circumvent the rights of the national parliament and government and modify the treaty without having any legitimate authority to do so. So the Polish are right.”
He told me there was no schism between the east and west of Europe, but rather “between common sense and non-common sense”. With a shrug, he declared that the idea of levying sanctions against Poland was “ridiculous”.
So we are heading for a proper row. Is it worth it – the EU going into a political battle with one of its own members? It’s a question I put to the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte says Poland has to take ‘the necessary steps’
“I think we have to be tough but I think the question is how do you get there,” he told me. “My argument will be that the independence of the Polish judiciary is the key issue which we have to discuss and we have to settle.
“Poland has to take the necessary steps – that is non-negotiable. This has to do with the foundations of our democracy in this part of the world. So here we cannot negotiate.”
Of course, the EU has plenty of form at creating a crisis, only to then come up with a way to solve it. But this doesn’t feel stage-managed. It feels awkward and painful – the Germans, for instance, don’t seem to want to interfere, but nor do they want to be seen as too passive.
But Poland has popped up repeatedly in recent missives from Brussels. Its border with Belarus has been the site for migrants being pushed towards Europe by President Lukashenko, only to be stopped in their tracks by the Polish police.
Its rules on LGBTQ+ rights have been widely criticised, as have the country’s laws on equality.
And, just like Mr Orban, Poland’s prime minister seems to see political capital in having a row with other EU leaders (especially ones from the west) while retaining the financial advantages of EU membership.
So this won’t end with Poland leaving, or being dismissed from the club. But we may be heading for an almighty row, that leads to… we don’t know where.
The Syrian presidency has announced it’s assembling a special taskforce to try to stop nearly a week of sectarian clashes in the southern Druze city of Sweida.
The presidency called for restraint on all sides and said it is making strenuous efforts to “stop the fighting and curb the violations that threaten the security of the citizens and the safety of society”.
By early Saturday morning, a ceasefire had been confirmed by the US special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, who posted on X that Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to a ceasefire supported by US secretary of state Marco Rubio.
The post went on to state that this agreement had the support of “Turkey, Jordan and its neighbours” and called upon the Druze, Bedouins, and Sunni factions to put down their arms.
Sky News special correspondent Alex Crawford reports from the road leading to Sweida, the city that has become the epicentre of Syria’s sectarian violence.
For the past 24 hours, we’ve watched as Syria‘s multiple Arab tribes began mobilising in the Sweida province to help defend their Bedouin brethren.
Thousands travelled from multiple different Syrian areas and had reached the edge of Sweida city by Friday nightfall after a day of almost non-stop violent clashes and killings.
“We have come to protect the [Arab] Bedouin women and children who are being terrorised by the Druze,” they told us.
Arab fighters said they had come to protect the Bedouin women and children
Fighters at a petrol station
Every shop and every home in the streets leading up to Sweida city has been burned or ransacked, the contents destroyed or looted.
We saw tribal fighters loading the back of pickup trucks and driving away from the city with vehicles packed with looted goods from Druze homes.
Shops and homes leading up to Sweida city have been burned or ransacked
Several videos posted online showed violence against the Druze, including one where tribal fighters force three men to throw themselves off a high-rise balcony and are seen being shot as they do so.
Doctors at the nearby community hospital in Buser al Harir said there had been a constant stream of casualties being brought in. As we watched, another dead fighter was carried out of an ambulance.
The medics estimated there had been more than 600 dead in their area alone. “The youngest child who was killed was a one-and-a-half-year-old baby,” one doctor told us.
Doctors said there had been a constant stream of casualties due to violence
The violence is the most dangerous outbreak of sectarian clashes since the fall of the Bashar al Assad regime last December – and the most serious challenge for the new leader to navigate.
The newly brokered deal is aimed at ending the sectarian killings and restoring some sort of stability in a country which is emerging from more than a decade of civil war.
Israel and Syria have agreed to a ceasefire, the US ambassador to Turkey has said.
Several hundred people have reportedly been killed this week in the south of Syria in violence involving local fighters, government authorities and Bedouin tribes.
As the violence escalated in the southern province of Sweida, Israel launched airstrikes, including attacks on Wednesday on the defence ministry in Damascus and a target near the presidential palace.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said it aimed to protect Syrian Druze – part of a small but influential minority that also has followers in Lebanon and Israel.
In a post on X, the US ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack, said Israel and Syria had agreed to a ceasefire supported by Turkey, Jordan and others.
“We call upon Druze, Bedouins, and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity,” Mr Barrack said in a post on X.
The Israeli embassy in Washington and Syrian Consulate in Canada did not immediately comment or respond to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency.
The ceasefire announcement came after the US worked to put an end to the conflict, with secretary of state Marco Rubio saying on Wednesday that steps had been agreed to end a “troubling and horrifying situation”.
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Why is Israel bombing Syria?
After Israel warned it would destroy forces attacking Syrian Druze, Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa told the minority group in a televised statement on Thursday that “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party”.
He then claimed Israel has “consistently targeted our stability and created discord among us since the fall of the former regime”.
It comes after the United Nations’ migration agency said earlier on Friday that nearly 80,000 people had been displaced in the region since violence broke out on Sunday.
It also said that essential services, including water and electricity, had collapsed in Sweida, telecommunications systems were widely disrupted, and health facilities in Sweida and Daraa were under severe strain.
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At least three people have been killed after a “horrific incident” at a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department training facility, officials have said.
A spokesperson for the department said there was an explosion at the Biscailuz Center Academy Training in east LA.
The incident was reported at around 7.30am local time (3.30pm UK time).
Aerial footage from local channel KABC-TV suggests the blast happened in a parking lot filled with sheriff patrol cars and box trucks.
The training centre in east LA. Pic: NBC Los Angeles
Attorney general Pam Bondi wrote on X: “I just spoke to @USAttyEssayli about what appears to be a horrific incident that killed at least three at a law enforcement training facility in Los Angeles.
“Our federal agents are at the scene and we are working to learn more.”
California congressman Jimmy Sanchez said the explosion had “claimed the lives of at least three deputies”.
“My condolences to the families and everyone impacted by this loss,” he said.
Media and law enforcement officials near the explosion site. Pic: AP
The attorney general said in a follow-up post that agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are “on the ground to support”.
The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, said the LAPD bomb squad has also responded to the scene.
“The thoughts of all Angelenos are with all of those impacted by this blast,” she said.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has been briefed on the incident, his press office said in a post on X.
“The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is in contact with the Sheriff’s Department and closely monitoring the situation, and has offered full state assistance,” it added.
The cause of the explosion is being investigated.
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