Poland's unprecedented refusal to clearly obey an injunction from the European Court of Justice forbidding logging in the protected Białowieża forest is the latest battle in an increasingly bitter conflict between Warsaw and Brussels.

Poland's right-wing Law and Justice party government says the forest is under attack from a plague of bark beetles, and the best defense is to chop down affected trees. Environment Minister Jan Szyszko last year authorized a tripling of the permitted logging outside of the most strictly protected heart of the forest — and loggers have harvested an estimated 93,000 trees so far this year. The wood isn't affected by the insects.

The European Commission, backed by NGOs and many forestry scientists, condemns Szyszko's approach. Białowieża is unique in Europe, bearing traces of the primeval forest that once covered the Continent. It is designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO along with the neighboring Belovezhskaya Pushcha in Belarus and is protected under the EU's Natura 2000 program.

Poland's defiance of the ECJ in recent days is being swept into other ongoing conflicts with the EU. Brussels launched an infringement procedure in July over concerns the government is undermining the independence of its judiciary, and also opened an unprecedented probe of the country's adherence to the rule of law. If continued logging is confirmed, "the issue will be taken up in the ongoing rule of law procedure with Poland," Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said last week.

In mid-July, the Commission referred Warsaw to the Court of Justice of the EU to stop large-scale logging. The Commission requested an injunction "compelling Poland to suspend the works immediately,” and the court issued a temporary order on July 27. The Commission is worried continued logging would cause "serious and irreparable damage" to the forest while the court works on the case.

But the injunction allows trees to be cut down in the name of public security, which Poland is using as its argument for continuing to log.

“We are currently removing trees attacked by the spruce bark beetle that can break and fall on roads or trails,” said a spokesman for the Białystok branch of the state-owned forest company.

The forest is protected but parts are open to hikers and guides must accompany visitors to a more stringently controlled section. Some areas are no-go zones for tourists.

A wayward EU member

The standoff puts Brussels into uncharted waters.

“The idea that the member state wouldn’t comply with a court order is unprecedented, and [so is] what the consequences would be,” an ECJ spokesperson said. “It’s big.”

Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans and Environment Commissioner Karmenu Vella wrote to Warsaw last week, urging the Polish government to comply with the court’s order, according to a letter seen by POLITICO.

The commissioners also undercut the Polish rationale for continued logging. The ECJ injunction says the temporary ban would "not seriously compromise the objective invoked by Poland for the logging, i.e. to combat the outbreak of bark beetles," they wrote.

The Commission asked the court on Monday to treat the issue as a priority.

The action has also galvanized protests in Poland, with hundreds of demonstrators trying to block loggers. Police have arrested some participants, and a TV news crew was roughed up by lumberjacks in late July when filming logging operations.

“It is difficult to assess what will happen next, as it is the first time in history when an EU state ignores an injunction by the EU's top court,” said Agata Szafraniuk from ClientEarth Poland, an environmental law nonprofit organization.

The ECJ has issued emergency injunctions only three times in nature conservation issues, she said, one of which was filed against Poland a decade ago when Szyszko was also environment minister and Poland conflicted with the EU over building a highway through an area protected by the Natura 2000 program. That time Poland obeyed and the highway was eventually build in a different area.

Should Poland continue to resist the court's temporary injunction, it may face financial sanctions. In other cases where countries failed to comply with an ECJ final ruling, they were hit with penalties.

Szyszko insists Poland is doing nothing wrong. He told Polish state television Tuesday evening that in an August 4 letter to the ECJ he "clarified all doubts" and accused Brussels of using the situation to pile pressure on the country so “that it gives up its legitimate rights."

"Poland wants to clarify all these issues as quickly as possible, which is why we are demanding a hearing before the European Court of Justice to see if Poland is in the right or not,” Szyszko said, adding, “Poland is in the right."

A ministry spokesman said the government is obeying the injunction and "was only conducting actions aiming to ensure public safety."

And ending the logging would mean a financial hit for Poland, Szyszko said. In a submission to the ECJ outlining the government's reasons for cutting the trees, the environment ministry said the beetles would cause an estimated 3.2 billion Polish zlotys (€751 million) in environmental damage to the forest if it halted logging until the court comes out with a final ruling, according to the Polish Press Agency.

Controversial arguments

Environmental activists and scientists say the safety argument is a cover for commercial logging.

"Dry trees do not fall on the heads of tourists, and there are no fires in the forest," Szafraniuk said.

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee recently called on Poland “to immediately halt all logging and wood extraction in old-growth forests.” And Polish scientists Rafał Kowalczyk, Piotr Tryjanowski and Michał Żmihorski say the 62,000-hectare Polish section of the forest has seen beetle outbreaks before and its ecosystem successfully contained them without the need for logging.

In neighboring Belarus, the Belovezhskaya Pushcha national park is also affected by the bark beetle, but the Belarusians are not undertaking any large-scale logging, Vasily Filimonov, chief forester of the Belarusian park, told Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper.

"The logging I observed a month ago in the Polish part of the forest is huge," he said, "disproportionate to the need to fight beetles."

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misstated the date of Mina Andreeva's statement. It was last week.