The European Court of Justice is due to rule in April on an EU complaint that Warsaw’s decision in 2016 to allow more commercial logging in the Białowieża Forest broke the bloc’s laws.

Greenpeace and other campaign groups have said the logging allowed by Warsaw is threatening the UNESCO World Heritage Site and its populations of European bison, lynx, and rare birds.

Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party, which is already at odds with Brussels over judicial reforms, has said it has the right to manage its own resources, and that the logging is needed to control a beetle infestation.

Kowalczyk said he expected the court ruling would focus only on how Poland, the EU’s largest Eastern European member, had managed the forest up to now.

The court “will not, however, indicate precisely future methods to protect (the forest), because it would be a transgression beyond its competence,” Kowalczyk said in an interview.

If the court made any specific recommendations about the forest’s future management, particularly if it banned any logging, then the government would have to discuss it, he added.

Warsaw wanted to draw up its own protection plan for the forest, he said. “I expect that it will be a compromise between active and passive protection,” he added, without spelling out how many trees would be removed under an “active” scheme.

An adviser to the EU court said in February that Poland’s decision to increase logging in the forest did break EU law. While judges are not obliged to follow the adviser’s recommendation, they do so in most cases.