Donald Tusk and the European Union have taken their war on national sovereignty to terrifying new levels.
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Ever since the election of pro-EU Donald Tusk as the prime minister of Poland in 2023, Brussels has regarded the country as the staging ground for perfecting its experiment in imperial domination. As a former European Council president and now the European Commission’s favourite son, Tusk knows that he can get away with just about anything. That is why, on the evening of Friday 30 October, he effectively sent in the police to Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal.
The intense drama unfolded after the court’s president, Bogdan Święczkowski, and its vice-president, Bartłomiej Sochański, were suspended by Anna Korwin-Piotrowska – a fellow judge who is close to the Tusk regime. Korwin-Piotrowska has since announced that she is taking ‘control’ of the court. Waldemar Żurek, Poland’s justice minister, said he instructed Korwin-Piotrowska to take these measures in order to pave the way for the prosecution of Święczkowski and Sochański for ‘failing to perform their duties’.
This judicial coup d’état was timed to coincide with an overseas trip of Karol Nawrocki, Poland’s populist president who represents the Law and Justice Party (PiS). He is also a bitter critic of Tusk. Upon hearing the news of this coup, Nawrocki turned his plane back on Friday evening and returned to Warsaw.
Nawrocki forced his way into the Constitutional Tribunal on Saturday – a confrontation that played out on live television. Outside the court, he issued a statement warning that, ‘there was a breach of public order in the Republic of Poland and a forcible takeover of a constitutional body’. For its part, the tribunal warned that Tusk had staged a coup.
In turn, Tusk justified his action by claiming that there was ‘no other way’ to restore the rule of law. ‘There was never any doubt that the court in the form imposed by PiS was not a genuine court’, Tusk said in a televised address on Saturday. He claimed that there are ‘organisations and politicians in Poland who seek to destroy democracy and the rule of law’, and cited Russia’s opposition to his changes as proof that he was acting in the interests of citizens.
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What Tusk really meant was that the judges sitting on Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal – most of whom were appointed by PiS – refused to dance to his tune, and therefore had to be prevented from performing their legitimate judicial role. According to Tusk’s authoritarian logic, since there was no other way, the use of force was a legitimate response to the situation.
The key issue at stake in the dispute between the Constitutional Tribunal and the Tusk-EU bloc was whether Polish constitutional law could take precedence over EU laws. For the EU oligarchy, the laws cobbled together in Brussels must take precedence over national courts. Through its pursuit of lawfare against sovereign decision-making, Brussels hopes to ensure that its federalist project prevails over the national interests of its member states. Bringing the Polish courts to heel is key to ensuring the dominance of EU law.
It is worth noting that even some liberal Polish legal scholars, who are fiercely opposed to the conservative Nawrocki and PiS, were shocked by the scenes at the Constitutional Tribunal. Marcin Matczak, a liberal law professor, was taken aback by Tusk’s actions. He declared that there is ‘no legal basis’ whatsoever for the suspension of Święczkowski.
Tusk’s violation of the foundational principles of the rule of law was met with studied indifference by the Commission. In fact, Brussels has effectively given Tusk a free pass. A Commission spokesperson noted: ‘It is for the Polish authorities to ensure that the Constitutional Tribunal can function in accordance with the Polish constitution and in respect of the relevant case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union.’
There was never any doubt about the Commission’s support for Tusk’s coup. For some time now, Brussels has been actively promoting the project of undermining and ultimately crushing its opponents in Poland. Tusk’s election in 2023 represented an important step towards realising this goal. However, thanks to the election of Nawrocki in 2025, and a constitutional tribunal fiercely protective of its independence, Tusk could not gain full control over the levers of judicial power.
The EU has consistently demonstrated that it will not tolerate any government in its orbit that pursues independent, sovereign interests. Europe’s outright hostility to former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, and its blatant interference in the Romanian elections last year, show just how far it will go to crush populist politicians and their movements.
Slowly, a new authoritarian imperial order is taking shape within the European Union. This must be met with an unyielding patriotic response.
Frank Furedi is president of the Freedom and Sovereignty Initiative Europe.
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