WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland's conservative ruling party leader says the European Union won't "break the Polish will" to complete an overhaul of the justice system.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, widely considered the true power behind the government, says that "if the judiciary isn't reformed, other reforms make little sense because sooner or later they will be negated, withdrawn, by the courts."

His comments were made in an interview with the pro-government weekly "Sieci" and published Monday.

Kaczynski is the driving figure behind a populist-conservative reshaping of the Central European nation. The European Union has warned his party's overhaul of the court system violates Western democratic standards.

Kaczynski, 69, was recently hospitalized and was out of the public eye for weeks. In the interview he said he had a "dangerous" bacterial infection of the knee.