Ursula von der Leyen and other eurocrats in Brussels have been savaged for turning a blind eye to new Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s media crackdown in Poland, including “sending riot police to arrest journalists”.
Mr Tusk is locked in an increasingly bitter battle with political opponents in the right-wing Law and Justice Party (PiS), and has faced strong criticism both domestically and internationally for his decision to take TVP, Poland’s national broadcaster, off the air.
Posting on X (formerly Twitter) Brexiteer and journalist Toby Young said: “Newly elected Prime Minister Donald Tusk has been busy sending riot police to purge Polish media of those who oppose him – and suddenly the EU has nothing to say about the ‘rule of law’ in Warsaw.”
Responding to Mr Young’s post, London-based think tank the Bruges Group added: “The EU only pretends to care about the “rule of law” so that it can weaponise it against those (conservatives) whom it opposes.
“Brussels’ actual aim is to subjugate national democracy in Europe under the ‘liberal’ tyranny of EU law.”
Last week saw a large, PiS-organised demonstration in Warsaw, the country’s capital in protest at the takeover, as well as Mr Tusk’s decision to arrest two Polish politicians.
Former interior minister Mariusz Kaminski and his former deputy Maciej Wasik previously took refuge in the Presidential Palace which is home to Andrzej Duda, Poland’s PiS-aligned President.
Mr Tusk’s relationship with Mr Duda is famously frosty, with the former President of the European Council claiming his country’s head of state was being manipulated by PiS, telling a news conference: “They are the ones setting a trap for him, not me.”
Speaking to Express.co.uk at the time, Beata Szydlo, a former Polish Prime Minister who is now an MEP, said: “Poland is in danger of destroying the democratic basis for the functioning of the state.
“It has come to the point that, unable to cope with the chaos it has created, Tusk’s coalition has been forced to cancel the parliamentary sessions scheduled for the 10th and 11th.”
Poland is now focused on the 2024 state budget, which was approved by the Sejm, or lower legislature, yesterday, but which needs to be signed off by the Senate, or upper house, plus Mr Duda himself, by January 29. Otherwise, Mr Duda would be required to call early elections just weeks after the general election of October which saw Mr Tusk seize power.
Speaking yesterday in Davos, Switzerland, where he was attending the World Economic Forum, Mr Duda he did not: ”see such a possibility at all” for calling early elections.
He added: “I hope I will be able to easily sign this budget. What I would like is for the government to be able to implement the budget with responsibility.”
Mr Tusk’s new pro-European Union government took office last month and had to work fast to get the budget ready in time.
It provides for government spending of up to £183billion (866,4 billion zlotys), with a deficit of up to £39billion (184 billion zlotys, or 5.1 percent of the gross domestic product.
Compared to the draft by the previous conservative government, it allocates more money to education and health care and less to the president’s office and various historical institutions – such as the National Remembrance Institute that investigates Nazi and communist crimes against Poles – which were linked to the Law and Justice administration.
Speaking after the vote, Mr Tusk said: “It is a source of great satisfaction for me that indeed … this budget is for the people.”
