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The European Commission has asked the European Court of Justice to speed up a case against Warsaw over large-scale logging in the Bialowieza forest, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The forest is also home to the largest herd of European bison, unique birds and insects, and the ECJ has issued an interim order demanding Poland cease its activities. But the Polish government, led by the eurosceptic Rule and Jutice Party (PiS), has claimed the logging is necessary to control a beetle outbreak and has ignored the ECJ ruling. It is the latest act of defiance by PiS, having passed controversial judical reforms giving the government greater powers over the judiciary and the state-run media.

Last week European Council president Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, admitted there was a "question mark" over his country's future with the EU. He said: "It smells like an introduction to an announcement that Poland does not need the European Union and that Poland is not needed for the EU. "I am afraid we are closer to that moment.” Katarzyna Lubnauer, an MP for the opposition Nowoczesna party, suggested PiS was deliberately trying to provoke the EU into expelling the country from the bloc. She said: "When we look at what is happening now, we get the deep feeling that the farewell has already begun."

GETTY Law & Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski is on a collision course with Donald Tusk and the EU

GETTY Poland has continued its mass logging in the Bialowieza forest despite ECJ orders

There is no precedent for expelling an uruly member state from the bloc. The first country to leave the European Union in its history will be Britain in 2019, and of its own volition. But European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has threatened to strip away Poland’s right to vote on EU matters by invoking Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty for the first time in history. He said: “If the Polish government goes ahead with undermining the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law in Poland, we will have no other choice than to trigger Article 7." It would take at least of third of the EU’s 28 member states to back Article 7 in order to impose sanctions and suspend voting rights.. But it can only triggered if there is a "clear risk of a serious breach by a Member State of the values referred to in Article 2”.

GETTY Protestors opposing Jaroslaw Kaczynski's judicial changes demonstrate in Warsaw