Poland’s Attempted Judicial Coup Will Shape the Post-War European Order

Yves here. A coup is underway in Poland by pro-EU forces lead by Donald Tusk against right wing nationalists, as in the PiS party, over control over the courts:

BREAKING: 🇵🇱 Coup d’état underway in Poland

Coup d’état underway in Poland after EU-aligned Prime Minister Donald Tusk sent police forces to the Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw right after President Nawrocki left for Senegal for a diplomatic visit.

Nawrocki is currently headed back to Poland.

The President of the Polish Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw, Bogdan Swieczkowski, was suspended and possibly arrested. He is a known support of President Nawrocki.

Several right-wing Polish MPs and their supports are reportedly on their way to the Constitutional Tribunal to defend the institution from being taken over by Donald Tusk.

Warsaw’s police forces are preventing the President of the Constitutional Tribunal Bogdan Święczkowski, members of the Sejm and protesters from entering the Constitutional Court.

— Megatron (@Megatron_ron) October 30, 2026

From the lead story at Anadolu Agency: Polish president aborts Africa trip as power struggle erupts at Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw:

Polish President Karol Nawrocki aborted a flight to Senegal and returned to Warsaw on Friday as a major power struggle erupted over control of the country’s Constitutional Tribunal.

Warsaw police said officers had been sent to the tribunal after receiving information about possible threats to judges and staff and a risk of public disorder. Police said they had not entered the court building and denied claims that officers had stormed it. Three people were detained after allegedly climbing over the fence surrounding the tribunal, while police said objects had also been thrown at officers.

Orders appeared on the tribunal’s website on Friday temporarily removing its president, Bogdan Swieczkowski, and vice president, Bartlomiej Sochanski, from their duties. But the tribunal’s official account on X later rejected the decision as illegal, saying that both remained in office and describing the attempt to remove them as a “coup.”

The confrontation prompted Nawrocki to abort an official visit to Senegal while his plane was over southern Spain. “In such a moment the president must be in Poland. I am interrupting the flight to Senegal. I am returning,” Nawrocki wrote on X.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk defended the process later on Friday evening. “Restoring the rule of law is our duty. After years of PiS lawlessness, it is a difficult process, sometimes painful, and requires decisive action. There is no other way,” he wrote on X, referring to the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.

Tusk’s government and Nawrocki, who is allied with the conservative PiS, now in opposition, have been locked in a dispute over Poland’s courts and judicial appointments.

PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski and other opposition politicians arrived outside the court and accused the government of trying to seize control of the institution. Kaczynski described the events as a “coup against the Constitutional Tribunal” and called on Nawrocki to intervene.

At the center of the dispute is Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, who said she had ordered Swieczkowski and Sochanski to stop carrying out their duties….

The conflict reflects a deeper dispute over who can legally sit on the tribunal.

Parliament elected Korwin-Piotrowska and several other judges earlier this year, but Nawrocki refused to formally receive the oaths of some of them.

His office argues they therefore never legally took office. The judges and the governing coalition reject that interpretation.

Friday’s crisis also came as Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Waldemar Zurek sought to lift the judicial immunity of Swieczkowski and Sochanski.

Zurek said he had filed five applications with the tribunal, four concerning Swieczkowski and one concerning Sochanski. “These are serious criminal cases,” he told reporters.

The Constitutional Tribunal has been at the center of Poland’s long-running dispute over the rule of law.

The PiS reshaped the court after coming to power in 2015, drawing criticism from opposition parties and European institutions over judicial independence.

Now to the main event.

By Andrew Korybko, a Moscow-based American political analyst who specializes in the global systemic transition to multipolarity in the New Cold War. He has a PhD from MGIMO,which is under the umbrella of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Originally published at his website.

Poland’s German-backed liberal premier wants to hamstring the US-backed conservative president’s efforts to lead the EU’s reform into a union of nation-states if his allies return to power next fall, which would save it from becoming a German-dominated federation and turn Poland into a regional power.

Liberal Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk attempted a judicial coup on Friday while conservative President Karol Nawrocki was en route to Africa, thus prompting him return to Poland mid-flight to lead the resistance from the front. To oversimplify a complex legal issue, there’s been an over-decade-long dispute between liberals and conservatives over the Constitutional Tribunal, which the liberals and their EU allies accuse the conservatives of stacking. The Tribunal tends to prioritize Polish law over EU law.

Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, who was elected to the Tribunal by the liberal-controlled Sejm but to whom Nawrocki refused to administer her oath on the grounds of a flawed election procedure (thus making her status therein legally debatable), ordered the suspension of the Tribunal’s president and vice-president. She assumed their roles and ordered police to the courthouse, while Tusk’s Justice Minister requested stripping their immunity and bringing charges against them. Protesters quickly gathered thereafter.

Nawrocki entered the premises late at night while being pushed around in the process and reaffirmed that he doesn’t recognize Korwin-Piotrowska as a judge. He later released a statement on X wherein he condemned the “violation of the constitutional order” and “forcible takeover of a constitutional state organ.” Nawrocki also called for the police to depart from the courthouse, announced that he’s convening urgent consultations with the Sejm, and thanked everyone who stood with the Tribunal.

The larger context concerns fall 2027’s next Sejm elections that could hypothetically be held early as a way of resolving the latest crisis, which is the worst in Poland’s post-communist history by far. Reputable polling suggests that the conservatives can return to power through a coalition between them, their new breakaway faction, and the two libertarian-nationalist parties. In that event, backed by the conservative-aligned Tribunal, Nawrocki would be empowered to push through agenda of reforming the EU.

He elaborated on his vision in detail here last year, which amounts to restoring member state’s sovereignty within the limits allowed by the EU in order to transform the bloc into a union of nation-states, thus derailing the trend of it turning into a German-dominated federation. Conservative grey cardinal Jarosław Kaczyński recently spoke about this at length, but Tusk fearmongered that he wants to stage a “Polexit”, which was a cheap ploy to win votes after his earlier anti-Russian fearmongering failed.

This contextualizes Tusk’s moves as a liberal power play, possibly even ordered by the Germans to whom he’s been so close his entire professional life that Kaczyński once accused him of being their “agent”, to prevent a future conservative-led Poland from reforming the EU. Nawrocki became Europe’s conservative champion after Orban’s downfall, and with a wink from Trump, he envisages Poland leading the Intermarium’s conservative pushback against the EU’s federalization in the emerging post-war order.

If Tusk’s attempted judicial coup succeeds, then Poland will become subordinated to Germany, but its failure would empower Poland’s rise as a regional power. Trump and Nawrocki are friends, they have similar views, and neither wants liberal Germany dominating the EU. Trump might therefore throw his country’s weight around to tip the balance of Poland’s worst political crisis since the end of communism in Nawrocki’s favor, but if the German-led EU pushes back, then it could spark another US-EU crisis.