Governing party wilfully leading Poland out of EU says Tusk

Donald Tusk, the leader of Poland's main opposition party, the centrist Civic Platform, has accused the governing Law and Justice party (PiS) of being determined to take Poland out of the EU.

Poland's PiS-dominated government has become involved in a series of protracted and bruising disputes with Brussels, the sum of which has fuelled accusations that it is intent on taking the country out of the bloc.

Law and Justice politicians have long denied this, saying they are committed to the EU. But they would like to see an organisation based on sovereign states; rejecting calls for greater integration.

Speaking at a political rally in the northern city of Bydgoszcz, Tusk said: "The PiS team is consciously taking Poland out of the EU, despite Poland and Poles wanting to remain in Europe and at the heart of EU." 

He added that PiS already tried to take Poland out of the European Union once before - "almost two years ago." 

"It was then, literally overnight, that I urged the residents of Warsaw, to come to Plac Zamkowy (the historic square in front of the Royal Castle – PAP) and demonstrate that we, Polish women and men, are a part of the broad political culture and the great civil society of the West," he said.

He also said that the first "Solidarity" (the Polish trade union that in the early 1980s became the first independent labour union in a country belonging to the Soviet Bloc – PAP) and Poles in the past fought to be part of a vast community where "freedom, rule of law, responsibility, and solidarity are the foundations of the political system present throughout Europe and Poland."

All opinion surveys, Tusk added, have shown that Poles want to continue to be part of the European Union.