Europe Today: Tusk v Nawrocki: Poland's Constitutional Tribunal crisis explodes

Good morning, it's Monday, November the 2nd, you're watching Euronews, and this is Europe Today. Our top stories. Poland's long-standing political battle over the judiciary has reached a new flashpoint after President Karol Nawrocki forced his way into the Constitutional Tribunal amid clashes between riot police and anti-government protesters. Nawrocki and supporters are demanding the reinstatement of a conservative top judge whose suspension is backed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk's pro-EU government. Mass demonstrations in Germany that passed largely peacefully turned violent as night fell on Saturday and rioters faced off against police in Frankfurt, Cologne, Hamburg and Berlin. The protesters demanded better education and lower living costs. Authorities made arrests and used water cannons to break up the crowds. Rioters threw Molotov cocktails and set of fireworks, with police maintaining a visible presence after the streets had emptied on Sunday. And China has shown no interest in holding a three-way summit with Russia and the United States on Ukraine. That's according to German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in an interview broadcast last night following Steinmeier's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. China considers Ukraine a purely European affair, Steinmeier said. The three-way summit was proposed by Vladimir Putin and had the backing of Donald Trump. Welcome to the program. I'm Stefan Grobe. Poland is facing a deepening constitutional crisis with the government and the presidency locked in a bitter battle over who controls the judiciary. The government under Donald Tusk says it is restoring the rule of law. President Karol Nawrocki's camp accuses it of trying to seize the courts. So, who is really undermining Poland's democracy? And can this confrontation be resolved before it spirals further? We're going to hear from both sides of the issue. First, I'm joined by Michal Wawrykiewicz, a member of the European Parliament for the European People's Party, the party of Donald Tusk. Good morning and thanks for coming on. Good morning. Thank you for having me. So we've now seen an extraordinary confrontation with newly elected judges entering the tribunal, the president of the court being challenged and President Karol Nawrocki personally intervening. Who actually has the legal authority to decide who sits on the tribunal and who runs it? We are facing the huge constitutional crisis in Poland, in the Constitutional Court of Poland, since 2015, when the Law and Justice Party started the government and they brutally assaulted the Constitutional Court. Since that time... We had a lot of violations and this situation was challenged by all possible courts, also European courts, European courts of human rights and the court of justice. And they all confirmed that what has happened in 2015, 2016 and later on, that was the violation. Now we are. The government of Donald Tusk and the majority in the parliament and the judges who were elected by the parliament are trying to restore the rule of law in the parliament. And what we have seen is that on Friday, newly elected judges entered the constitutional court and Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska ordered the suspension. Of two judges, the president and the vice president of the Constitutional Court, who were appointed by the Law and Justice Party. Alrighty. So… So let me ask you this. The government says it is restoring judicial independence after years of political weaponization under the Law and Justice Party. But isn't the government now doing exactly what it accused Law and Justice of doing, using political power to reshape the judiciary? Definitely not. The government, the majority in the parliament and the judges elected by the parliament are acting according to the rulings of the European courts, of the Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, according to what Venice Commission confirmed just two weeks ago and according to the interim measure which was issued on the 5th of May. This year, allowing these judges to enter the Constitutional Court. They were blocked by the president and the vice president of the court. And that's why Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska decided to suspend these two judges, president and the vice president of the court. And that is what happened on Friday. And later on in the night, what we have seen was the brutal assault of the president of of the Republic, who entered... Using force entered the building of the Constitutional Court and using the force almost damaged the judges standing in front of the court. So this is what we have seen. That was the brutal assault of the President of the Republic on the independence of the Constitutional Court. So the European Commission says the same, the Parliament, has the constitutional power to appoint judges to the Constitutional Tribunal. Does that settle the argument? Yes, definitely, the only competent authority in Poland to appoint judges of the Constitutional Court is the Parliament, the lower chamber of the Parliament in Poland. The President does not have any competences to appoint judges. That's why the only right is on the side of the Parliament and the government and the judges who are elected properly by the Parliament. And so we are facing the enforcement of law, the restoring of the rule of law and independence of this most important constitutional court in Poland. What is the concrete way out of this crisis now and what would it take to secure some Some sort of cross-party recognition of the tribunal. Well, the consistency of all of the actions in the next days, in the future. Tomorrow, there is an assembly, general assembly of all judges of the Constitutional Court, and they will decide upon the future of the Constitutional Court. This is the only competent body in the Constitutional Court to decide about the future of the Constitutional of the judges and of the suspended If Tusk and Nawrocki refuse to back down, who actually has the power to stop this crisis? Well, this crisis, as I said, started back in 2015. And this year, President Nawrocki, who is trying to block all of the restoration of the rule of law, all of the implementation of the rulings of the European courts, which is the most important, because these rulings are drawing the roadmap how to get out of the crisis. But President Nawrocki needs and wants to keep... The power of his political camp over the Constitutional Court. So this is the fault of President Nawrocki and his camp that they don't want to restore the rule of law. They want to keep the political power over the Constitutional Court. That was the politically manipulated theater of puppets for 10 years, and they want to keep it. This is quite an extraordinary crisis. I can't remember anything like it in any other EU country. Are you worried that this story sort of harms the international, the European reputation of Poland? Our European friends deeply understand the situation in Poland because they are facing this situation for many years and this situation and also in other parts of the judiciary was discussed, debated in the parliament, in other institutions of the European Union many times. So I truly believe that they understand the situation and they understand that the government of Donald Tusk is trying to restore. We will rebuild the rule of law in Poland and we will be fully consistent in that way. And I believe we will do that. You are right that this is an unprecedented situation, not only in Poland, but in the whole Europe. Never happened before. But we are where we are and we need to act on the battlefield where we are. All right. Michał Wawrzykiewicz, member of the European People's Party in the European Parliament. Thank you very much. Now we want to hear from the other side of the issue. And to do this, Polish Secretary of State and advisor to President Nawrocki, Marcin Pszczedacz joins us now. Good morning to you. Good morning, very good morning. Hello, sir. So, the government says it is trying to restore the tribunal's independence after years of political interference. President Nawrocki says the government is trying to take control of the court. Which side is defending the constitution? Definitely restoring any kind of rule of law, which the government claims should not be done by the 3000 riot police entering the premises of the Constitutional Tribunal. And that is what happened in the evening of Friday, when people in Poland were heading towards their families out of Warsaw for the All Saints Day. It was a very quiet, in the capital of Poland, evening. The president was on his way to Senegal, and suddenly we learned that Prime Minister Tusk sent 3,000 riot police troops in order to, as they say, clean the constitutional tribunal without any legal basis for that. Of course, there is a crisis. Of course, there is a dispute over that. But even the lawyers who are very close to the liberal government say that there is absolutely no legal basis for such a behavior of the government. What's more, the president of the Supreme Court and the president of the National Administrative Court, so the two most important judges in Poland, they also said publicly that there is absolutely no... legitimate basis for such a behavior of the government. So that's why we are in such a crisis now in Poland. Sir, I mean, we all saw the scenes where President Nawrocki entered the building, the tribunal building. Critics described the visit as a PR stunt to exert pressure on the court. Why did the president decide to intervene in person? And what exactly was he trying to achieve? Well, according to the Polish constitution, president of the Republic of Poland is the guard of the constitution. So whenever he sees that the constitution is violated, he is obliged to react. But before going to the tribunal, he went to his own palace, invited the president of the Supreme Court in order to learn his perspective, in order to learn an expertise on that. What's going on and how should he treat that? President is the head of state with a very strong, strong, he's a legitimized leader, I mean, with a very strong mandate. More than 10 million people voted directly for him, but he wanted to learn the perspective of the legal perspective. After learning that it's all illegal, he went there in order to first learn on the basis What's going on there? The second, to help the legitimate. President and the deputy president of the tribunal entered the building in order to restore the order. Unfortunately, he was blocked by those appointees of Prime Minister Tusk who are claiming that there are judges. But as Prime Minister Tusk publicly said, these are his judges. So Prime Minister Tusk says, these are my judges. We believe that there shouldn't be any my, his, or that. Their judges, they should be legitimate legal judges, not Tusk's judges. Okay, so are President Nawrocki and Prime Minister Tusk now effectively fighting a constitutional war? Well, as I said, there is a constitutional crisis, definitely, and the people of Poland gathered in front of the tribunal protesting against that kind of situation, mostly protesting, of course, against the entrance of police. There is evidence that there is a crisis. What President Nawrocki said and did after that, he invited all the political parties to the palace In order to talk, because we believe that in democracy it is the dialogue which may solve the crisis. The problem is that Prime Minister Tusk was not eager to really talk. He just issued his statement through the public television saying that he will not step back from that and he will only keep the police there in the Constitutional Tribunal. So all the other parties are very much eager to talk and to consult and there is one main message coming from all the parties. It cannot be like this. There is a need for any kind of restart of a situation. So we do believe that based on that, we will build something positive. All right, Polish Secretary of State and Presidential Advisor Marcin Piesiewicz, thank you very much this morning. Almost 5,000 dead, more than 10,000 infected. The Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo is escalating, yet the international response is struggling to keep pace. The Elders, a group of former world leaders founded by Nelson Mandela, are demanding urgent action. Earlier I spoke to one of their most influential personalities, former Irish President Mary Robinson, and I started by asking her whether we're witnessing a global health emergency that the world is simply choosing to ignore. Here's what she said. It's really tragic what's happening because this is the fastest moving Ebola. 10,000 cases and about 50% mortality, which means more than 5,000 people have died. But worse than that, they're not able to follow up on the contacts because of the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Of course, I know it well from my time as mediator for the Great Lakes in Africa, for the UN, and there's an urgent need for resources. To help with contacts, to help the frontline health workers, and to help with humanitarian access, etc. It has now spread. There are some cases also in Kenya, in Uganda, in Nigeria, and France. So it is very dangerous because of the fact that they are not able to trace the contacts, much less than in the Ebola in 2014, for example. And this is very So the elders are calling for more international action. What exactly are you demanding? Is it more money, more medical personnel, or a totally different international approach to this crisis? We're so worried that we actually wrote an open letter to the G20 because €3 billion was pledged but only €1 billion is being released and of course the G20 includes members of the EU. So we ask for the release of the funds that were pledged and are needed really urgently and this should include specific funds to protect, pay and support health workers and community leaders. For village centres, responses to the frontline and funds for humanitarian early recovery needs. It also calls for guaranteed fair access to approved vaccines and treatment for priority groups. First to counter mutation risks, because there is a mutation risk apparently, particularly in the DRC. and ...address the security dimension of the crisis by pressurizing armed groups in the DRC and neighboring countries with influence you to allow safe access for health and humanitarian workers. They're the main calls that we make in that open letter. and It was really very worrying, as I said, to see how quickly this is spreading, how high the mortality rate is. much. And, you know. Only a billion of the three billion pledged has actually been released to address it. So you've been a leading international voice for human rights and international global justice. Thank This is kind of a tough question. Is the impression right that the international community treats African lives as less valuable than European and American lives? you I'm afraid it is a tough question. but very You have to feel that the lives of those who are invisible to us, they're poor, they live in remote areas that are under difficulty much. you of militias and armed groups, and we don't care enough. We don't care enough, that's true. very And are Western governments guilty of complacency here, or are they simply overwhelmed by the magnitude of the crisis much. and shrinking aid budgets? I think there are a number of factors that distract governments, but the point we're making is this is dangerous. If you have a highly communicable disease and you're not able to trace the contacts because you don't have the resources to do it, it will spread further. And this could be really serious, particularly for African countries, but then it will spread to Europe. Former Irish President Mary Robinson on the growing Ebola crisis in Africa. More news today on all our platforms until we see each other again tomorrow. That's it for today. I thank you for watching. I'm Stefan Grobe. Take care.