PM Morawiecki: opposition spreads fake news about "Polexit"

"Our dear opposition are trying to insinuate that we want to weaken the union by leaving the EU," Mateusz Morawiecki said during a summit of the four central and east European "Visegrad" nations in the Hungarian capital Budapest. "This is obviously not just fake news, it is something worse - it is a lie that aims to weaken the Union," he explained.

"This lie is based a completely faulty premise, that people don't know how to read rulings of Constitutional Courts in other member states, which were very similar to the one passed by Polish Constitutional Tribunal," Poland's PM argued.

He added that more and more western politicians and media outlets were hearing the voice of the Polish government. "Politics should not be done in the streets, but through cooperation and taking firm action aimed at tightening relations with friends within the EU borders," Morawiecki said.

A spokesman for Poland's largest opposition party, Civic Platform, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Poland's Constitutional Tribunal ruled against the central tenet of European integration last week, sharply escalating a row over fundamental values between eurosceptics ruling in Warsaw and most of the other 27 EU countries.

More than 100,000 people protested in Poland on Sunday in support of the EU, sounding the alarm about what they fear is a prospect of their country following Britain and leaving the bloc in a "Polexit".

At Sunday's demonstration in Warsaw, Donald Tusk, former head of the European Council and now leader of Civic Platform, said PiS was jeopardising Poland's future in Europe.

"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," said Vera Jourova, EU Commissioner from Poland's neighbour, the Czech Republic.

"That is why we will have to react to this new chapter which the Polish constitutional court started to draw," said Jourova, in charge of values and transparency at the executive European Commission.

PiS say the European Union has overstepped its mandate in trying to stop judicial reforms in Poland that Brussels says undermine the independence of the courts.

The right-wing populist governments in Poland and Hungary have long been at odds with the EU's executive Commission over issues including media freedoms, migration, LGBT rights and judicial independence.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a key ally of Poland inside the EU, signed a decree on Saturday welcoming the ruling by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal.

Despite Warsaw's clashes with Brussels, support for EU membership remains very high in Poland, the bloc's largest ex-communist country and a top beneficiary of EU aid to help poorer members close the development gap with wealthier ones.