President Nawrocki’s Opening Salvo: A Precision Assault on the Tusk System

Let's hope he's successful in dismantling the nascent anti-Polish, Left-wing, EU-centred dictatorship that Tusk was trying to build.

From The European Conservative

By Artur Ciechanowicz

The Polish head of state’s first moves are not mere partisan sparring—they are about addressing the structural defects within the state.

Not yet a month into his presidency, Karol Nawrocki is already making waves in Poland’s political life. His inaugural address, followed swiftly by a series of pointed declarations, has left little doubt as to how he intends to confront Mr. Tusk’s government. And confront it he most certainly shall.

Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that these opening moves are mere partisan sparring—the ordinary jockeying of one faction for advantage over another. Nawrocki has set his sights on tackling the structural defects within the Polish state which, in his view, have long obstructed its social and economic development and thwarted its emancipation on the international stage. Mr. Tusk, to be sure, is the latest custodian of this state of affairs, but he is by no means its author. The deeper ailments concern, first, the disloyalty of the judiciary towards the Polish constitutional order; second, what Poles themselves call ‘comprador capitalism,’ a system of economic privilege inherited from the communist nomenklatura; and third, a lamentable habit in foreign policy of subordinating national interest to the desire ‘to be liked.’ Whether Nawrocki will persevere in this ambitious programme remains to be seen; at least in one of these domains he must cross swords with elements of the very circles that brought him to office.

Judiciary

In his inaugural address, Nawrocki made a striking declaration: the rule of law, he said, must be restored in Poland. “It is difficult to call lawful,” he observed, “a state in which the legally appointed national prosecutor is barred from office, or in which Article 7 of the Constitution—stating that organs of the State must act on the basis and within the limits of the law—is routinely violated.” He went on to pledge that throughout his presidency, he will not nominate or promote judges whose conduct, in his words, “undermines the constitutional order of the Republic of Poland.” Judges, he insisted, are servants of the Republic, not demigods.

The context here is important. Since Mr. Tusk returned to office in December 2023, the judiciary has been used as an instrument of political vengeance, in the spirit of the old Stalinist adage: “Give me the man, and I will find the crime.” This has been enabled by the abusive recourse to pre-trial detention, which must be authorised by a court. One opposition figure, rather than face imprisonment, was obliged to seek asylum in Hungary.

Nawrocki’s first practical measure, therefore, is to withhold nominations and promotions from those judges who exhibit political activism. The design is plain enough: to deprive Mr. Tusk of his favoured weapon, namely the instrumentalisation of the courts against political adversaries. The tactic has the merit of simplicity. Judges contemplating political interventions will henceforth do so with the knowledge that their careers will pay the price. One may wonder why President Duda, Nawrocki’s predecessor, never attempted so direct a course. For the judiciary is to the state what the nervous system is to the body: the brain—the executive and legislative branches—may determine policy, but unless the nervous system faithfully transmits the signals, or worse, sabotages them, the policy collapses into impotence. This explains why the European Commission, under the fashionable slogan of ‘defending the rule of law,’ was so eager to detach the Polish judiciary from its national framework. The control of a relatively small cadre of unelected judges confers disproportionate power over the state as a whole.

‘Comprador capitalism‘

The second pillar of Nawrocki’s programme concerns the economy. Since 1989, Poland’s economic system has borne the imprint of what Poles term ‘comprador capitalism.’ The term is drawn from Marxist-Leninist jargon, in which ‘comprador bourgeoisie’ denoted those native elites in colonial territories who prospered by collaborating with the foreign power. In the Polish case, after communism’s fall, key sectors of the economy—especially energy and finance—remained under the influence of networks linked to the old communist security apparatus. Access to the market was governed less by merit, enterprise or ingenuity, and more by membership in the appropriate clique. Legislation was crafted to protect these entrenched circles, barring outsiders from meaningful participation.

The consequences have been severe. Poland’s economic potential has been only partially utilised; the most enterprising often chose emigration, to the nation’s long-term detriment. Those who remain either submit to the system or fight against it. Mr. Tusk’s political faction has consistently defended this arrangement, making itself the protector of a highly politicised economy. Nawrocki, therefore, intends his second line of attack to fall directly upon the government coalition, by exposing its financial mismanagement: the swelling budget deficit, rampant VAT fraud, and the unresolved scandal of the mismanagement of the EU Recovery Fund. His strategy may be either to prise away the coalition’s junior partners or to engineer a parliamentary deadlock over the budget—an impasse that would constitutionally permit him to dissolve Parliament.

Foreign policy

The third sphere of Nawrocki’s activity is foreign policy—more precisely, the restoration of Poland’s proper weight on the international stage. His first step in this direction was to veto legislation prolonging special social benefits for Ukrainian refugees in Poland. It is worth noting that such privileges had been extended even to programmes designed to raise Poland’s own birth rate, a peculiarity introduced by Mr. Morawiecki’s (Law and Justice) previous government. The veto caused an outcry, even among certain right-leaning commentators. Yet Nawrocki appears determined to insist upon a distinction between solidarity with Ukraine’s war effort and the permanent subsidisation of its citizens within Poland.

As his adviser on European affairs, he has appointed Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, a veteran of Poland’s EU accession negotiations and one of the country’s most experienced European parliamentarians. Saryusz-Wolski has long argued that Poland should act not according to the imperative ‘to be liked,’ but in accordance with its true weight. In 2022, he proposed to sue the European Commission before the Court of Justice for its unlawful blockade of Polish funds, to seek alternative loans outside the Commission’s conditions, and even to suspend participation in the EU’s Recovery Fund and its climate policy mechanism (the ETS). Had the previous government heeded this advice, Poland—and not only Poland—might have been spared the present subjugation to the Commission’s expanding pretensions.

Will Nawrocki endure, facing not only Tusk and his domestic allies but also the Brussels oligarchy and part of his own political camp? For the moment he has the nation at his back. A recent opinion poll by SW Research, published by news portal Onet, asked: “Do you support President Nawrocki’s decision to veto the law on aid to Ukrainian citizens?” Nearly 60% answered in the affirmative, with only a quarter opposing the decision. The Polish people have spoken with remarkable clarity.