A deepening power struggle between Poland’s leaders is threatening to derail Donald Tusk’s pro-EU agenda and pit state institutions against one another.
In a highly anticipated meeting held on Monday, Polish President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Tusk failed to ease tensions, with Duda describing the new administration’s reforms as attempts to “violate the law” and Tusk blaming the president for “devastation of the rule of law” under the previous right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government.
Tusk has previously denounced the “obvious sabotage” tactics of the PiS opposition as a bid to maintain control over part of the state apparatus. “To put it bluntly, we are dealing with an attempt to build a dual power and with involvement of the most important state institutions,” he said in a news conference last week.