The EU treaties that Poland has signed (along with every other member state) assert that EU law has primacy over national law.

If Poland’s government doesn’t like that, it should resign its membership like Britain did.

You should be able to cite the relevant passage in the accession treaty that Poland signed to support that assertion.

You can read the treaty here: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/enlargement_new/treaty/defaul...

Take all the time you need. You'll find lots of specific agreements on wheat subsidies, travel restrictions, etc. But a general claim that EU courts can override Polish courts or EU law to supercede Polish law? It's not there.

If you think it is, please go ahead and cite the passage in the treaty. Otherwise please withdraw the claim.

ARTICLE 1

1. The Czech Republic, the Republic of Estonia, the Republic of Cyprus, the Republic of Latvia, the Republic of Lithuania, the Republic of Hungary, the Republic of Malta, the Republic of Poland, the Republic of Slovenia and the Slovak Republic hereby become members of the European Union and Parties to the Treaties on which the Union is founded as amended or supplemented.

2. The conditions of admission and the adjustments to the Treaties on which the Union is founded, entailed by such admission, are set out in the Act annexed to this Treaty. The provisions of that Act shall form an integral part of this Treaty.

3. The provisions concerning the rights and obligations of the Member States and the powers and jurisdiction of the institutions of the Union as set out in the Treaties referred to in paragraph 1 shall apply in respect of this Treaty.

See also: Treaty of Lisbon, which Poland also signed. Specifically, Declaration 17: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...

17. Declaration concerning primacy

The Conference recalls that, in accordance with well settled case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Treaties and the law adopted by the Union on the basis of the Treaties have primacy over the law of Member States, under the conditions laid down by the said case law.

Edit:

You may want to also have a look here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=LEGISSUM...

"According to the precedence principle, European law is superior to the national laws of Member States. The precedence principle applies to all European acts with a binding force. Therefore, Member States may not apply a national rule which contradicts to European law.

The precedence principle guarantees the superiority of European law over national laws. It is a fundamental principle of European law. As with the direct effect principle, it is not inscribed in the Treaties, but has been enshrined by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU)."

None of that claims that EU laws override Polish laws or that EU judges can override Polish judges when interpreting Polish law.

From the treaty: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

"To the extent that a provision of the Charter refers to national laws and practices, it shall only apply to Poland or the United Kingdom to the extent that the rights or principles that it contains are recognised in the law or practices of Poland or of the United Kingdom."

Rather, it is an agreement in which national parliaments agree to pass national laws in harmony with certain EU laws, or face some penalties. The reason why national parliaments need to do that is because national laws and national constitutions as interpreted by national judges remain the supreme law of the land, and so this treaty was required in order to provide a framework to urge members states to harmonize or give up various EU funding perks.

Look, I get that a lot of people want a Federal Europe, but you can't get there by pretending you've already arrived and being outraged at those who point out you haven't. The EU as presently constituted is basically the articles of confederation, where states need to pass local versions of EU laws, rather than something like a true Federal Europe.

"the Treaties and the law adopted by the Union on the basis of the Treaties have primacy over the law of Member States, under the conditions laid down by the said case law."

This does not read ambiguously. You asked for a citation, it was given, and now you're ignoring it. Unless you specifically show why this doesn't say what we think it does, you've lost your audience.

Just some of the carve-outs for Poland

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

" 1. The Charter does not extend the ability of the Court of Justice of the European Union, or any court or tribunal of Poland or of the United Kingdom, to find that the laws, regulations or administrative provisions, practices or action of Poland or of the United Kingdom are inconsistent with the fundamental rights, freedoms and principles that it reaffirms.

2. In particular, and for the avoidance of doubt, nothing in Title IV of the Charter creates justiciable rights applicable to Poland or the United Kingdom except in so far as Poland or the United Kingdom has provided for such rights in its national law."

See my other reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28806878

I believe you’re confusing this reference to the Charter of Fundamental Rights — a separate document — with the treaty itself.

No, what is called the Charter of Fundamental Rights is part of the Lisbon Treaty (which itself is just a series of amendments to the previous treaties on the European Union). It is, btw, what the European Court of Justice is intended to enforce.

You can see this from the (lengthy) title:

"Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union - Consolidated version of the Treaty on European Union - Protocols - Declarations annexed to the Final Act of the Intergovernmental Conference which adopted the Treaty of Lisbon, signed on 13 December 2007 "

Now you are right that what prompted these carveouts was fear that the EU would promulgate various human rights provisions and force them on Poland, specifically abortion/gay marriage and other measures inconsistent with Polish Catholicism.

This is part of the strategic ambiguity of the Lisbon treaty, with conflicting claims in the treaty meant to satisfy different parties. Thus in one section it states that national laws will be respected, and in another it has a supremacy clause, and in a third it says the area of competence is subordinate to national parliaments.

All meant to create strategic ambiguity to get the thing signed.

But even more importantly for Poland as well as other countries, national Supreme Courts must enforce the constitution of each nation and that constitution is the Supreme Law of the land. A treaty cannot abbrogate a constitution. Thus Polish judges cannot side with a treaty when it conflicts with the Polish constitution. Recognition of this is respecting the rule of law, not violating it.

And when there is a conflict between a law and a treaty, the judges need to side with the law rather than the treaty. The treaty is an outward promise to the rest of the EU and the EU can find that Poland violated its treaty obligations, which would be a matter for the Polish Ambassadors and representatives to deal with, but unless the Polish constitution is amended to recognize the acts of the EU parliament as having the force of law in Poland, then the judges have to enforce the Polish law as enacted by the legitimate law creating mechanisms spelled out in the constitution.

Ironically, this insistence on enforcing the law and the constitution is what the EU calls "violating the rule of law".

And the same thing is true in the Czech republic -- when there is a conflict between an EU law and the Czech constitution, then judges have to side with the Constitution:

https://journals.muni.cz/cpvp/article/view/6637

This came up as the Czechs are seeking to enshrine the right to bear arms in the constitution, so it is very relevant to know who ends up winning: EU gun regulations or Czech regulations. Well, the Czech regulations win.

This should be obvious, if the EU requires its rulings to override national law without being enacted by the national Parliament, then it should have required Constitutional changes to delegate the creation of lawmaking to the EU before letting the nation sign the treaty.

But then no nation would join the EU.

Therefore you have this strategic ambiguity and feigned outrage whenever a supreme court says it is beholden to its national constitution rather than to a treaty (in those cases where there is a conflict).

There is a process for changing the constitution, and it is much harder than the process for signing a treaty. This is because the constitution specifies how laws are to be created and interpreted, not treaties.

Treaties are agreements between nations, but within a nation, the constitution is supreme, and that will remain the case unless the Polish constitution is changed. Polish judges are expected to enforce that constitution, and if the EU finds that Poland has not respected its treaty obligations, it can try to withhold aid or take some other EU specific measure against Poland, but it's not the job of judges to allow treaties to change constitutions.

As others have said, you’re seemingly ignoring the existence of EU regulations which apply automatically without needing to be transposed into local law, and of the Court of Justice of the EU whose decisions are binding for local courts.

Both of these were established by the treaties that were in place when Poland joined, and further reaffirmed in the Treaty of Lisbon (which was supposed to be the clarified and rewritten European Constitution, but that was a bridge too far for some countries’ voters, so instead it became a web of amendments over the existing treaties).

Look at the promises made to Poland:

1. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

"To the extent that a provision of the Charter refers to national laws and practices, it shall only apply to Poland or the United Kingdom to the extent that the rights or principles that it contains are recognised in the law or practices of Poland or of the United Kingdom."

" 1. The Charter does not extend the ability of the Court of Justice of the European Union, or any court or tribunal of Poland or of the United Kingdom, to find that the laws, regulations or administrative provisions, practices or action of Poland or of the United Kingdom are inconsistent with the fundamental rights, freedoms and principles that it reaffirms."

"In particular, and for the avoidance of doubt, nothing in Title IV of the Charter creates justiciable rights applicable to Poland or the United Kingdom except in so far as Poland or the United Kingdom has provided for such rights in its national law."

“Charter” referred here is a separate document mentioned in Article 6 of the treaty:

The Union recognises the rights, freedoms and principles set out in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union of 7 December 2000, as adapted at Strasbourg, on 12 December 2007, which shall have the same legal value as the Treaties.

The provisions of the Charter shall not extend in any way the competences of the Union as defined in the Treaties.

So the Charter is about human rights, and as the treaty makes clear, doesn’t extend the competences of the Union. Poland and UK wanted to put a further point on this for some reason. It is not a carve-out from the treaty.

Poland signed the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007 together with every other member state. That’s the place you should start looking.

Go ahead and cite the passage in the Treaty of Lisbon that says Polish law can be overriden by EU law. I'll wait.

Hint: the reason why the structure of the EU was designed so that national parliaments would pass their own versions of laws agreed to in the EU parliament was precisely because it is the national laws that are binding. Similarly the EU courts rule on actions of the member states in the context of the EU, whether the member states are living up to their agreement. They do not directly rule on laws or override laws in the national parliaments.

You are confusing EU regulations and EU directives. One is automatically binding.

Read these two pages. They are fairly clear, contain references to primary sources, and disagree with your claims:

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-making-process/types-eu-la...

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=LEGISSUM...

Article 288 Treaty on Functioning of the EU

(ex Article 249 TEC)

To exercise the Union's competences, the institutions shall adopt regulations, directives, decisions, recommendations and opinions.

A regulation shall have general application. It shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States. [...]

"Shall adopt" means they have to make local laws. All you're doing is highlighting the grandparent's point.

The grandparent is right and you're wrong.

Also, be very wary about quoting sources that end in a domain .EU, they're obviously biased.

If with "biased" you mean that they (europa.eu) are the official online resource which publishes the treaties in question, verbatim, you are correct. It's an unusual use of terminology, though.

This is some pretty silly linguistic gymnastics.

From the text of the Treaty of Lisbon:

17. Declaration concerning primacy

The Conference recalls that, in accordance with well settled case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Treaties and the law adopted by the Union on the basis of the Treaties have primacy over the law of Member States, under the conditions laid down by the said case law.

Often laws are long winded and hard to understand so some confusion can be understandable. This is two lines and straightforward.

"Yes, but I choose to ignore those parts."

I do not look forward to either the portmanteaus, nor the dumb news coverage that Poland leaving the EU would create.

Yeah, that's the ideal. Unfortunately when the local government is worse than a bunch of faraway bureaucrats, it's just hard to justify supporting them.

I’ll take unelected EU bureaucrat over elected Trump-like something any day.

Democracy is very inconvenient, especially for those who struggle to persuade others how to live.

Good quip, but you’re of course ignoring the issue that democracies can sometimes trample minority rights. This is precisely the issue in this context, with Poland trying to pass anti-LGBTQ laws, and the EU trying to stop them.

Democracies are often very convenient for coercing minorities into living the way the majority wants them to live.

I'm not ignoring any such thing, as Churchill famously said "democ­ra­cy is the worst form of Gov­ern­ment except for all those oth­er forms that have been tried". It's inconvenient even for those who are persuasive, but especially for those who are not and for those who are authoritarian - sets that tend to overlap, in my experience.

As to Poland, there are no publicised plans for changes to laws that directly affect gays, and they actually have many legal protections that you'll find lacking elsewhere. No same sex marriage or civil partnerships though.

If you think stripping away democracy so that Polish gays can marry is worth it then you're entitled to that view, but I'd hazard a guess that they've got long enough memories to avoid that kind of short term thinking and will carry on with the long term effort of persuasion, which is going well[1].

> Meanwhile, support for the legalisation of same-sex partnerships – which are currently not permitted in Poland – now stands at 36%, up six percentage points since 2019 and ten since 2015. Surveys by other pollsters have in recent years found a growing majority now in favour of same-sex partnerships.

[1] https://notesfrompoland.com/2021/08/06/poles-becoming-more-s...

> If you think stripping away democracy so that Polish gays can marry is worth it then you're entitled to that view.

Ah, a straw man. Please don’t do that, it’s tiresome.

I’m not a fan of “stripping away democracy” per the words you tried to put into my mouth. I am however rather clear eyed about the drawbacks of democracies in how they tend to treat minorities. If that reads as being anti democracy to you, then there is no point in continuing this conversation.

The comment I initially replied to is choosing against democracy, you continued the argument, hence, it's not a straw man but the position you are defending. If you wish to distance yourself from that initial position then be my guest, but thus far you haven't, except to imply it through ad hominem against me - please don't do that, it's tiresome.