Donald Tusk returned to office promising to restore the rule of law. On October 30, that promise produced a confrontation at Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal, the court charged with reviewing legislation and international agreements against the constitution.
The next day, Nawrocki called the events a forcible takeover of a constitutional institution. Tusk responded in a televised address by comparing the dispute to recovering a stolen handbag. The supposed thief, in his analogy, complains of violence when the rightful owner tries to recover her property. “In certain matters there can be no compromise,” the prime minister insisted.
It was a revealing argument from a government invoking legality to defend measures whose legal foundation was being challenged even by prominent opponents of Poland’s previous conservative administration. The stakes reach beyond a Warsaw courthouse. The institution at the centre of the dispute has already challenged Brussels over the limits of EU authority, while a separate confrontation over the independence of Poland’s central bank is approaching.
The Court That Challenged Brussels
The latest escalation began when a judge elected under Tusk’s parliamentary majority ordered a month-long interruption of the official duties of the Tribunal’s president and deputy. They rejected her authority. Further orders restricted access to the premises and altered working arrangements for staff. Poland’s justice minister, who also serves as prosecutor general, submitted five applications seeking to lift the judicial immunity of the two leaders.
Police maintained that officers were protecting the building rather than occupying it. But the question of legality cannot be settled by the government’s account of its intentions. A constitutional scholar known for his criticism of the previous conservative government’s judicial reforms declared that there was no legal basis for suspending the Tribunal president. He considered that official wholly unsuitable for the post, yet rejected the procedure used against him.
That objection exposes the weakness of Tusk’s claim to be simply repairing the rule of law. A government cannot make an act constitutional by describing its opponents as thieves.
The court’s importance to Brussels is established by experience. In 2021, it rejected certain interpretations of EU treaties as incompatible with Poland’s constitutional order. The clash raised a fundamental question: who determines the boundaries of powers a sovereign state has transferred to European institutions? In December 2025, the EU Court of Justice ruled against Poland, finding violations of EU law and defects affecting the Tribunal’s independence and composition.
After Tusk took office in December 2023, the Commission’s approach changed remarkably quickly. In May 2024, it ended proceedings against Poland under Article 7 of the EU treaty, relying partly on the new government’s action plan and promised reforms. The contested institutions had not yet been reconstructed. Brussels was prepared to accept political commitments before the legal settlement was complete.
One of the judges elected by Tusk’s majority had until recently served as a minister responsible for implementing government policy. In October, he took his judicial oath in parliament rather than before the president, who disputed the procedure. His move became part of a struggle presented to the public as the depoliticization of the judiciary.
Federalization by Procedure
The European dimension had already been raised publicly before the October confrontation. On September 4, Nawrocki’s chief of staff warned parliament that Tusk needed a more accommodating Tribunal not only for domestic battles but also for the next EU budget and Ursula von der Leyen’s federal ambitions. His charge was political, not evidence of an agreement with the Commission. The institutional connection he identified, however, deserves examination.
On October 6, the Commission published Preparing for a Wider Union. It advocates broader use of qualified-majority voting in areas now protected by unanimity, including sanctions, measures against tax fraud and fiscal aspects of energy policy. Brussels also wants majority voting for intermediate stages of enlargement negotiations.
For a smaller member state, the practical consequences are considerable. A government that could previously stop a measure regarded as damaging to national interests might instead be outvoted. Hungary and Slovakia have used unanimity to secure concessions over sanctions, energy supplies and financing for Kiev. Their negotiating leverage rests partly on a legal power that the Commission wants to restrict in selected fields.
Federalisation can advance without a new constitution or a ceremony declaring a federal Europe. Remove enough opportunities for national governments to say no and authority shifts towards collective institutions. Brussels presents faster decision-making as the answer to enlargement. Smaller states must consider what they will have surrendered when the next dispute touches their own interests.
The changes remain proposals. The general treaty mechanism for switching to majority voting still requires unanimity and allows national parliaments to object. The Commission cannot simply abolish existing vetoes; it needs governments willing to accept narrower powers for those who succeed them.
Finance offers a parallel example. For the 2028–2034 budget, the Commission proposes revenue streams tied to emissions allowances, carbon-intensive imports, electronic waste, tobacco and large companies. Together with adjustments to existing sources, these could yield €58.2 billion annually in 2025 prices. The package remains subject to approval.
Poland has a substantial interest in the EU’s agricultural and regional funding. Tusk has argued for a bigger European budget, although his government opposes some proposed revenue transfers. Those differences do not eliminate the broader alignment: both Warsaw and Brussels support greater financial capacity at the European level.
A more politically accommodating Constitutional Tribunal could not erase presidential vetoes or bypass constitutional rules on transferring competences. But it could be less inclined to contest the domestic legal consequences of EU decisions. For a prime minister negotiating with Brussels, that would be a considerable advantage.
The Central Bank Is Already in the Fight
On October 9, reporting based on political and legal sources described a possible sequence of government actions: first the struggle over the Tribunal, then the campaign against Adam Glapiński, governor of the National Bank of Poland. The report concerned plans attributed to political insiders, not a confirmed joint operation. Events have nevertheless given the second dispute immediate substance.
That same day, a parliamentary committee recommended bringing Glapiński before the State Tribunal, a special court for senior public officials. The allegations include monetary operations and political conduct; he rejects them. On October 20, the speaker of the Sejm, Poland’s lower chamber, said a vote on the referral was planned for the second half of November.
The Constitutional Tribunal has already intervened in precisely this procedure. Its January 2024 judgment rejected rules allowing the governor’s automatic suspension following a parliamentary referral and found the ordinary-majority procedure constitutionally defective. The ruling has been interpreted as requiring a three-fifths majority. Tusk’s government contests its validity. The battle over the constitutional court therefore has direct implications for the safeguards surrounding the central bank’s leadership.
A second pressure point is even more concrete. Members of the bank’s management board are appointed by the president, but those decisions require the prime minister’s countersignature. In May, Tusk returned four proposed appointments without signing them. Nawrocki resubmitted the four nominations in October. On October 27, the government spokesman acknowledged that Tusk still had not signed.
The president’s office warned that an expiring board member’s term would leave the institution below its statutory minimum from November 5 unless appointments were approved. That is a prospective risk, not a disruption that has already happened. Yet withholding the required signature gives Tusk immediate leverage over an institution whose independence is constitutionally protected.
Poland’s own currency makes this more than a personnel quarrel. The zloty gives Warsaw monetary flexibility unavailable to euro-area governments. Poland remains committed under EU arrangements to eventual euro adoption but has no timetable. In January 2026, its finance minister said the economic arguments for retaining the zloty were growing stronger. There is no established evidence that Tusk plans to force euro adoption through the Tribunal.
Meanwhile, on October 30, the European Central Bank announced service providers for a potential digital euro, with technical readiness envisaged from 2029. That separate development neither establishes coordination with events in Warsaw nor automatically affects the zloty. It illustrates why monetary independence matters as Europe’s financial architecture evolves.
Tusk and von der Leyen need not have devised one coordinated plan for their interests to reinforce each other. A constitutional court less inclined to challenge Brussels would benefit a Commission seeking deeper integration. A weakened capacity to enforce constitutional limits would also benefit a prime minister facing domestic institutional resistance.
Central Europe should recognise the danger. Sovereignty need not be transferred in a single treaty or surrendered in a dramatic announcement. It can erode when the courts and monetary institutions capable of defending constitutional boundaries become prizes in a struggle for political control.
Adrian Korczyński, Independent Analyst & Observer on Central Europe and global policy research
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