EU "will start collapsing" unless it challenges Polish ruling - EU official

The European Union "will start collapsing" unless it challenges the Polish constitutional court ruling that national legislation has precedence over EU law, a senior official with the bloc has said, as cited by Reuters.

Poland's Constitutional Tribunal ruled last Thursday that several articles of the EU Treaties did not comply with the Polish constitution, calling into question the primacy of European Union law, a central tenet of EU membership.

"If we don't uphold the principle in the EU that equal rules are respected the same everywhere in Europe, the whole Europe will start collapsing," Vera Jourova, EU Commissioner for Values and Transparency said on Monday.

"That is why we will have to react to this new chapter which the Polish constitutional court started to draw," she added.