The European Commission has called on Poland’s President Karol Nawrocki to approve the appointment of new judges to the Constitutional Tribunal, as a dispute over the country’s top court deepens into a full constitutional crisis.
A Commission spokesman said on October 31 that Polish authorities must ensure the Constitutional Court operates in line with the Polish constitution and respects relevant rulings of the European Court of Justice, reported by Hurriyet Daily News.
The appeal came after Nawrocki held crisis talks with political leaders following a dramatic confrontation at the tribunal. The battle over judicial appointments has become one of the most serious political conflicts in Poland since the current government took office.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist government has spent weeks trying to remove the tribunal’s sitting judges. Officials argue that the judges are not politically neutral and that their appointments were made through a flawed process under the previous government.
The move has provoked fierce resistance from the right-wing Law and Justice party, which appointed the judges while in power. The standoff has placed Tusk’s government in direct conflict with the nationalist president and much of the opposition.
Representatives of nationalist and far-right parties, as well as some members of the ruling coalition, attended the talks at the presidential palace. Tusk’s Civic Coalition stayed away, according to Polish media.
The European Commission’s intervention underscores mounting concern in Brussels over judicial independence in Poland. EU officials fear that a paralysed or politicised Constitutional Tribunal could weaken the rule of law and complicate Poland’s relationship with European institutions.
For many Poles, the dispute is not simply a legal argument. It has become a wider struggle over who controls the country’s institutions and how far a government can go to undo the legacy of its predecessors.
With both sides refusing to back down, Poland’s constitutional crisis shows little sign of ending soon. The next move rests largely with President Nawrocki, whose decision could ease the standoff, or deepen it.
