Tusk-Nawrocki clash weakens Poland’s foreign-policy leverage

Poland left on the sidelines of Oslo war talks despite its border with Russia

WARSAW — Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist government and right-wing President Karol Nawrocki are locked in a decadelong struggle over Poland’s courts and appointments, The Wall Street Journal reported. The divisions have weakened Warsaw’s ability to influence NATO, Washington and major European powers and complicated its relationships with President Trump and some of Europe’s biggest powers. Poland, which shares a more than 100-mile border with Russia, was left on the sidelines of high-level discussions on the war in Ukraine.

The Journal described the underlying condition as “a divided political system that has paralyzed both sides for years.” The divisions broke into the open on Oct. 30, when Tusk’s centrist government ordered police to surround the Constitutional Tribunal, one of the country’s top judicial bodies, which rules on how laws should be applied, including how European Union rules are implemented in Poland. The police deployment triggered physical confrontations between top officials and protests that lasted late into the night.

Nawrocki, who was flying to Africa, turned his plane around and landed in Warsaw, then crossed through police lines into the courthouse to physically confront judges and promise to defend the tribunal leaders his party had appointed when in power.

Both sides have accused each other of attempting to stage a coup ahead of parliamentary elections next year. The confrontation comes as Poland still needs to pass a budget, while Nawrocki holds up swaths of diplomatic, judicial and military appointments and Russia steps up its campaign of sabotage and hybrid attacks.

Even a shooting in Krakow on Saturday, which killed six people, quickly descended into partisan conflict. Poland’s interior minister said the shooter was a far-right extremist, drawing criticism from nationalist parties.

The rivalry between Tusk’s Civic Platform and Nawrocki, who is aligned with the opposition Law and Justice party, has led both sides to use foreign policy to play to their bases at home. Tusk, who held a top European Union post a decade ago, and Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski have tangled with the Trump administration and its allies, including Elon Musk, who once told the Polish minister in a continuing online feud to “be quiet, small man.”

Meanwhile, Nawrocki has escalated a rift with Ukraine over the killing of Poles by Ukrainian nationalists in World War II and recently accused Germany, the continent’s biggest economic power, of not needing Hitler to unleash anti-Polish sentiment.

Slawomir Debski, a former government adviser and now a professor of international relations at the College of Europe in Natolin, Poland, tied the competing foreign policies to the domestic deadlock. “To have room for maneuvering on the national stage on Ukraine and Russia, you at least need to have open access to Kyiv and to the White House,” Debski said. “Now Tusk is unable to reach the White House. Nawrocki is unable to reach Kyiv.”

Poland brings substantial resources to that contest. The Wall Street Journal described Poland as having one of the strongest economies in Europe, one of NATO’s highest rates of military spending and a nearly unmatched understanding of Russia’s threat to the continent, and as fielding the largest military on the continent. Yet Poland’s influence on the world stage falls short of what those resources suggest.

The Journal noted that Poland’s divisions are hardly unique in the West, where the United States and even traditional European powerhouses have also seen rifts between centrist and populist politicians. Poland’s divisions have persisted for decades despite both sides sharing a common enemy in Russia and its economy growing at an annual average rate of 3.6% over the past decade.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Poland was vindicated when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, after warning for years that a revanchist Moscow was the biggest threat to the European order. Warsaw went on to become one of the biggest early donors of military equipment that allowed Ukraine to keep fighting in the early days of the war, and millions of Ukrainians poured into Poland, many of whom were given refuge there. Even so, Poland has not earned a seat at the table with the decision makers.

Last month, senior U.S., Ukrainian and European officials convened in Oslo for high-level discussions on the war. Days later, President Vladimir Putin held a phone call with the leaders of Norway and Finland, both of which share a border with Russia. Poland, which shares a more than 100-mile border with Russia, was left on the sidelines of both. That left some Polish officials concerned that Poland’s security interests were once again being left in the hands of Western European countries.

“The last thing we want is West Europeans dealing with Russia over the heads of the Eastern Europeans,” Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told reporters on Thursday.

For allies and neighbors, these splits weaken the voice of a NATO member that The Wall Street Journal described as a model member of the alliance, as the alliance considers both U.S.-European relations and its own future while the war over Poland’s eastern border continues.

The Journal described the fissure as a missed opportunity for Poland’s allies. “Serious people in Washington across the political spectrum laud the importance of Poland in the Alliance, the bilateral relationship, its commitment to its own defense and its contribution to trans-Atlantic security,” said Philip Bednarczyk, the German Marshall Fund’s Warsaw office director.

Trump has signaled that the U.S. intends to potentially open a new base in Poland even as Washington weighs troop cuts in Germany and other countries.

Poland has also played an important role within the European Union. It helped drive the bloc toward raising more money for defense, including the creation of a 150 billion euro program, from which Poland has drawn 40 billion euros. Its economy and wealth have caught up rapidly with Western European countries since it joined the EU in 2004, and the U.K. is pushing to include Poland in the Group of 20 major economies. The Journal said internal wrangling is damping what might otherwise be a powerful voice at a time when the EU’s biggest powers, France and Germany, frequently disagree.

Many Poles have expressed frustration with their country’s political divisions, The Wall Street Journal reported. In a country steeped in its sometimes tragic history, some draw parallels to the internal divisions of the late 18th century that allowed larger European powers to partition the country. “Now I understand how it happened,” said Maciej Kuziemski, CEO of Philanthropy for Impact. “Poland for centuries now has a history of infighting that is detrimental to its success.”

Current and former officials acknowledge that the internal fighting has damaged Poland’s influence. “We do not seem to be able to undertake a more ambitious, and nuanced foreign policy right now,” said Tomasz Szatkowski, who was fired as Poland’s ambassador to NATO shortly after Tusk won power.

Some officials said clashes may erupt around Poland’s Independence Day marches on Wednesday. Tusk’s justice minister, Waldemar Zurek, who has led the push to ensure the new judges elected by Poland’s parliament are able to take their seats at the Constitutional Tribunal, said he hopes Nawrocki and Tusk can reach an agreement to cool heads on both sides. “It is absolutely damaging to Poland’s reputation if there is unrest in the country,” Zurek said.