POLAND will fight the idea of a multi-speed European Union at the bloc’s forthcoming anniversary summit, the ruling conservative party’s leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski declared yesterday.

Leaders from France, Germany, Spain and Italy called earlier this month for groups of member states to be allowed to advance at their own pace as a way of cushioning the effect of Britain’s withdrawal.

The Law and Justice party leader told the wSieci conservative weekly that Poland would oppose that idea “with full strength.”

He said Warsaw could not accept any announcements of a two-speed Europe, insisting: “That would either mean pushing us out of the union or downgrading us to a member of an inferior category.”

Mr Kaczynski holds no government post, but he is widely considered the nation’s most powerful politician and the mastermind behind the policies of Prime Minister Beata Szydlo and her ministers.