POLAND FOR DUMMIES: what’s going on tonight?

POLAND FOR DUMMIES: what’s going on tonight?

🇵🇱⚔️🇵🇱 POLAND FOR DUMMIES: what’s going on tonight?

Poland has two bosses who hate each other.

➡️Donald Tusk, Prime Minister. Former President of the European Council, Brussels’ golden boy. Runs the government and parliament.

➡️Karol Nawrocki, President. Conservative, sovereigntist, backed by PiS. Holds the veto and swears in judges.

⚖️ The Constitutional Tribunal decides what’s constitutional. Its judges were mostly picked by PiS, so it keeps getting in Tusk’s way.

🇪🇺 Where does the EU come in? For years Brussels froze billions in funds to Poland and accused PiS of wrecking the “rule of law.” When Tusk took over, the money started flowing and Brussels dropped its case against Poland, all on his promise to “fix” the courts. Tonight is that fix.

Tusk’s plan: elect new judges.
Nawrocki’s response: refuses to swear them in.
The court’s president: refuses to let them work.

Now the stakes are higher. Poland votes next year, and polls suggest PiS could return to power. On Wednesday, PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński said the EU must be reformed and, as a last resort, Poland and allied countries could open exit talks to force Brussels to give powers back. Tusk immediately declared next year’s election “a referendum” on staying in the EU.

So tonight one of those unsworn judges declared herself boss of the court and suspended its president.
Police showed up, locked him out of his own building, and a locksmith had to cut the gate chain so he could get back onto the grounds.
Nawrocki turned his plane around mid-flight to rush home.

Tusk calls it “restoring the rule of law.”
The opposition calls it a coup.

Poland police put on ‘FULL READINESS’ — armed with SUBMACHINE GUNS and NIGHT VISION

Large POLICE COLUMNS roll toward WARSAW

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There is a lot more but it is not our bailiwick. If Poland turns insane, well, does it really make a difference?