BUDAPEST — If Brussels claws back €10 billion of EU funds controversially disbursed to Hungary, it will also have to recover as much as €137 billion from Poland too, Budapest’s EU affairs minister told POLITICO. The European Commission made a highly contentious decision in December 2023 to free up €10 billion of EU funds to Hungary that had been frozen because of weaknesses on rule of law deficiencies and backsliding on judicial independence. Members of the European Parliament condemned what looked like a political decision, offering a sweetener to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán just before a key summit where the EU needed his support for Ukraine aid. On Feb. 12, Court of Justice of the European Union Advocate General Tamara Ćapeta recommended annulling the decision, meaning Hungary may have to return the funds if the court follows in its final ruling in the coming months. Orbán has slammed the idea of a repayment as “absurd.” János Bóka, Hungary’s EU affairs minister, told POLITICO that clawing back the €10 billion from the euroskeptic government in Budapest would mean that Brussels should also be recovering cash from Poland, led by pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk. “We believe that the Commission’s decision was lawful … the opinion, I think, it’s legally excessive,” Bóka said. He warned that “if the Advocate General’s opinion is followed then the Commission would be legally required to freeze all the EU money going to Poland as well, which I think in any case the Commission is not willing to do.” The legal opinion on Hungary states the the Commission was wrong in unfreezing the funds “before the required legislative reforms had entered into force or were being applied,” Ćapeta said in February. Bóka said that would seem to describe the situation in Poland too. In February 2024, the EU executive released €137 billion in frozen funds to Tusk’s government in exchange for promised judicial reforms. But these have since been blocked by President Karol Nawrocki as tensions between the two worsen — spelling trouble for Poland’s continued access to EU cash. “It’s very easy to get the EU funds if they want to give it to you, as we could see in the case of Poland, where they could get the funds with a page-and-a-half action plan, which is still not implemented because of legislative difficulty,” Bóka said. Fundamentally, that is why Bóka said he believed “the court will not issue any judgment that would put Poland in a difficult position.” Bóka risks leaving office with Orbán after the April 12 election, with opposition leader Péter Magyar leading in the polls on a platform of unlocking EU funds, tackling corruption, and improving healthcare and education. The Commission is, separately, withholding another €18 billion of Hungarian funds — €7.6 billion in cohesion funds and €10.4 billion from the coronavirus recovery package. “I think Péter Magyar is right when he says that the Commission wants to give this money to them … in exchange, like they did in the case of Poland, they want alignment in key policy areas,” he said, “like support for Ukraine, green-lighting progress in Ukraine’s accession process, decoupling from Russian oil and gas, and implementing the Migration Pact.” “Just like in the case of Poland, they might allow rhetorical deviation from the line, but in key areas, they want alignment and compliance.” Poland’s Tusk has been vocal against EU laws, such as the migration pact and carbon emission reduction laws. Bóka also accused the Commission of deciding “not to engage in meaningful discussions [on EU funds] as the elections drew closer.” He added that if Orbán’s Fidesz were to win the election, “neither us nor the Commission will have any other choice than to sit down and discuss how we can make progress in this process.” Legal experts are cautious about assessing the potential impact of such a ruling, noting that the funds for Poland and Hungary were frozen under different legal frameworks. However, there is broad agreement that the case is likely to set some form of precedent over how the Commission handles disbursements of EU funds to its members. If the legal opinion is followed, “there could be a strong case against disbursing funds against Poland,” said Jacob Öberg, EU law professor at University of Southern Denmark. He said, however, that it is not certain the court will follow Ćapeta’s opinion because the cases assess different national contexts. Paul Dermine, EU law professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles agreed the court ruling could “at least in theory, have repercussions on what happened in the Polish case,” but said that he thought judges would follow the legal opinion “as the wrongdoings of the Commission in the Hungarian case are quite blatant.”

WARSAW — Poland’s MAGA-aligned President Karol Nawrocki is in a war for control of the country with pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The sharp end of the conflict concerns the European Union’s €150 billion Security Action For Europe program — an EU effort (in part negotiated by the Polish government) to provide cheap loans to finance arms purchases by member countries. Nawrocki last week vetoed a law enabling the allocation of a €44 billion loan to Poland, although the government insists it will still be able to get the cash. But SAFE is just one front in a wide-ranging tussle. Tusk and Nawrocki are sparring over everything from the EU’s social media law to the government’s efforts to restore rule of law, ambassadorial nominations, whether to swear in judges and even the EU’s Emissions Trading System. Both sides are painting the struggle in existential terms as they gear up for next year’s crucial parliamentary election. For Nawrocki and his allies in the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, the EU loan is a misguided effort that would make an independent Poland subservient to Brussels, and especially Berlin, while fraying ties with the U.S. “NO TO THE LOSS OF SOVEREIGNTY,” Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, a member of the European Parliament and one of Nawrocki’s top foreign policy advisers, wrote on X. Tusk is warning that the effort to derail the SAFE loan will inexorably lead to a Polexit — a U.K.-style Polish withdrawal from the EU. Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski attends a session of the European Parliament on November 27, 2019 in Strasbourg, France. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images “I think there is a clearly anti-European narrative promoted by the president’s camp and PiS. It’s potentially very dangerous, because we see in this rhetoric an attempt to cast the European Union as an enemy and to blame it for the challenges Poland faces,” Finance Minister Andrzej Domański told POLITICO, calling the president’s approach “extremely irresponsible and contrary to Poland’s national interest.” SUSPICIOUS LOANS SAFE is a flashpoint because Poland’s political divisions are as deep as in Donald Trump’s America. Both sides have their own media ecosystems and are engaged in a winner-takes-all conflict, with social contacts between ordinary people fraying over political differences. In the rest of the EU, SAFE was not controversial. So far 19 EU countries have signed up, and even conservative leaders like Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán are on board. While some countries have managed to rub along with power-sharing between presidents and prime ministers from different political groupings, it’s proving very difficult in Poland. A protester holds a trash bin saying “Safe.” Polish opposition groups protest outside the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, Poland, on February 21, 2026. | Marek Antoni Iwaczuk/NurPhoto via Getty Images The core promise Tusk made when he led his coalition to victory in the 2023 parliamentary election was to roll back many of the changes made during the previous eight years under PiS governments. Those governments had clashed with the EU over efforts to bring the judicial system under tighter political control and saw relations with key partners like Germany and France go sour, while top officials were accused by Tusk of misusing public funds. But Tusk’s program set him up for immediate clashes with pro-PiS President Andrzej Duda. The standoff grew even worse after Duda was replaced by the far tougher Nawrocki last year. Now Nawrocki is trying to expand the limited powers of the presidency, while Tusk is trying to hem him in. The prize is next year’s parliamentary election. POLITICO’s Poll of Polls shows Tusk’s Civic Coalition is comfortably ahead with the support of 34 percent of voters, while PiS trails at 26 percent. However, the smaller parties that make up Tusk’s coalition aren’t doing well and he’d be unlikely to form the next government. Just behind PiS are two far-right parties, the libertarian Confederation at 13 percent and the antisemitic Confederation of the Polish Crown with 8 percent. However, those parties are in deep conflict with PiS, and it’s unclear if they’d be able to form a stable coalition. That’s forcing PiS to scramble to appeal to conservative voters, making Nawrocki’s SAFE veto a key political move. A survey out this week by the Ibris organization found that 56.9 percent of those polled were opposed to Nawrocki’s SAFE veto while 33.8 percent supported it. While many voters are leery of the effort to block SAFE, the right-wing Republika television denounced the loan program with comments like: “HERR DONALD FÜR DEUTSCHLAND,” and, “A gang of traitors and Volksdeutsches is trying to saddle Poles with billions of euros in debt to Germany” — playing to anti-German stereotypes common among the Polish right. Berlin isn’t taking a SAFE loan as it can borrow more cheaply on its own. Poland’s new President Karol Nawrocki (right) and his predecessor Andrzej Duda wave as Nawrocki takes over the Presidential Palace on August 6, 2025 in Warsaw. | Sergei Gapon/AFP via Getty Images “I understand that blocking the law on realizing SAFE investments is an internal battle among the extreme right,” said Deputy Defense Minister Paweł Zalewski, adding that PiS had supported SAFE until it saw the rising danger from rival far-right parties. “It’s a battle for the anti-EU electorate. The danger is real.” PLAYING THE POLEXIT CARD Tusk is hoping to capitalize on the situation by warning of the danger of a Polexit. EU membership is still overwhelmingly popular in Poland — which has for years been one of the bloc’s best-performing economies. However, support is slowly eroding. A CBOS poll last month found that 82 percent of Poles support being in the EU, down from 92 percent in 2002; among conservative voters, only two-thirds back the bloc. Nawrocki and PiS insist they aren’t in favor of quitting the EU, just reshaping the bloc to make it more of a loose grouping of sovereign nation states. That aligns with the thinking of the U.S. administration, which strongly supports Nawrocki. “Tusk’s Polexit claim is utter nonsense and yet another attempt to scare voters for electoral gain — a campaign tactic, plain and simple,” Saryusz-Wolski told POLITICO. “PiS and the president support Poland’s membership of the EU, but with a sovereign role and on the basis of the EU Treaties — without competence creep or the usurpation of powers not granted to the EU, aimed at building a centralized European superstate in place of nation states,” Saryusz-Wolski said. But years of skepticism about the value of the EU can also build momentum to quit — as happened in the U.K. “It may be that they introduce this topic into public circulation somewhat cynically, that is, looking at it exclusively from the point of view of their own political interests, rather than because they genuinely want Polexit,” said Anna Mierzyńska, a disinformation expert. “But the consequences of doing so may be such that they will not be able to control it, and that Polexit might start defining things more broadly so that the 2027 campaign is all about whether you are for the EU or against it,” Mierzyńska added. Bartosz Brzeziński contributed to this report.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned on Sunday that a potential Polish exit from the European Union is now a “real threat,” accusing nationalist President Karol Nawrocki and right-wing opposition parties of steering the country toward leaving the bloc. In a post on X, Tusk said both factions of the far-right Confederation alliance and most lawmakers from the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party wanted to push Poland out of the EU. He called such a scenario “a catastrophe” and vowed to “do everything” to stop it. Tusk also linked the risk of “Polexit” to forces seeking to “break up the EU,” which he said included Russia, the American MAGA movement and European far-right leaders led by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. The warning comes after Nawrocki vetoed legislation on Thursday that would have allowed Poland to access up to €43.7 billion in low-interest EU defense loans. Tusk’s government lacks the parliamentary majority needed to override the veto, deepening uncertainty over how Poland will finance planned military spending that is set to reach nearly 5 percent of gross domestic product this year. Tusk has warned that Nawrocki’s veto could weaken Poland’s position inside the EU. On Friday, former PiS Europe Minister Konrad Szymański wrote in a newspaper commentary that Poland’s nationalist right was drifting onto a “road toward Polexit,” drawing parallels with the political dynamics that preceded Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the bloc. Recent polling suggests support for Poland’s quitting the EU remains weak in the country, but it is no longer marginal. Surveys indicate roughly one in 10 to one in four Poles would back launching an exit process, even as strong majorities still favor continued membership.

WARSAW — The EU’s €150 billion SAFE loans-for-weapons program was supposed to boost Poland’s rearmament, but instead it’s fueling a political war between the president and the prime minister. While the pro-EU government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk wants a €44 billion SAFE loan, aiming to continue the country’s rapid military buildup in a way that doesn’t worsen already strained public finances, nationalist President Karol Nawrocki is hunting for an alternative that involves financing armaments expenditures through the National Bank of Poland (NBP). The two men are sparring ahead of a crucial parliamentary election next year, where the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party aligned with Nawrocki hopes to unseat Tusk’s liberal coalition. The president and prime minster are battling over everything from ambassadorial nominations to undoing PiS’s judicial reforms, economic policy, foreign affairs, Ukraine, the EU and how to approach Nawrocki’s ally Donald Trump. Now the Polish president is turning on SAFE. Nawrocki this week met with central bank chief Adam Glapiński — who is sympathetic to PiS — to put forward a “concrete Polish alternative that will not involve interest payments or loans lasting until 2070,” to create a program worth around 185 billion złoty — equivalent to the SAFE cash the government is aiming for. Nawrocki faces a political decision over the next two weeks on whether to sign off on government legislation laying out rules for spending the Security Action For Europe money or to veto it. The spat in Poland is dismaying the European Commission, which wants member countries to rapidly boost defense spending to fend off the threat from Russia and to continue supporting Ukraine. “Who will lose if Poland doesn’t approve SAFE? Saying no to SAFE is saying no to jobs for Polish people,” Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said in Warsaw on Friday. “If Poland decided to use taxpayers’ money to buy weapons from somewhere else, that will mean Polish taxpayers money will create jobs elsewhere.” Nawrocki and PiS claim that euro-denominated SAFE loans will saddle Poland with decades of debt, create an exchange rate risk and could see Brussels imposing political conditions on the money’s availability. They also warn that contracts funded by SAFE could benefit Western European defense firms — especially those from Germany — rather than domestic producers, despite the government insisting 80 percent of the cash will stay in Poland. Embracing SAFE could also anger the U.S., Poland’s main ally and arms supplier, which has expressed displeasure at the program’s provisions limiting participation of non-EU countries. Nawrocki is allied with Donald Trump while Tusk has voiced doubts over Washington’s reliability and predictability. “Part of it is about signaling to the U.S. that they still have allies in Poland, part about stirring tensions with Germany, and part about creating difficulties for Donald Tusk ahead of the election,” said Ben Stanley, a political scientist at the SWPS University in Warsaw. PiS has been trending lower in POLITICO’s poll of polls since September, not long after Nawrocki won the presidential election, which was supposed to give the party a new powerful momentum. Nawrocki and PiS claim that euro-denominated SAFE loans will saddle Poland with decades of debt. | Jakub Porzycki/Anadolu via Getty Images Trailing by 9 percentage points to Tusk’s Civic Coalition, PiS also has to fight challenges from the far-right Confederation and the even more extreme antisemitic Confederation of the Polish Crown. However, polls do show that Tusk’s party and the other members of his coalition currently would fall short of winning another term in power. “My suspicion is that President Nawrocki will eventually sign, but not before making a great deal of noise and trying to frame the government as having blocked a more pro-Polish solution,” Stanley said. However, Nawrocki could also go for broke and try to block the SAFE loan by pushing his domestic alternative, wrote political scientist Marek Migalski. “The president’s initiative on ‘Polish SAFE’ is politically astute. It justifies the veto and gives his supporters an argument against the government, which not only wants to burden us with debt, but also wants to do so through the evil and deceitful EU,” he wrote on social media. Glapiński said Thursday he intends to propose “measures” that would not cut the country’s foreign currency reserves while securing “tens of billions of złoty” each year for the state-run Armed Forces Support Fund, a vehicle to finance military modernization. Glapiński is hemmed in by legal restrictions limiting the central bank’s ability to finance the budget, but his messaging suggests the NBP is readying a large-scale gold selloff. With 550 tons of gold stored in domestic and foreign vaults, the NBP is one of Europe’s top gold hoarders. “[The NBP] signals a sell–buyback operation involving the central bank’s gold reserves. Although it would formally comply with central bank accounting rules, it could in practice be viewed as risky from the perspective of Poland’s credibility in financial markets,” ING Bank wrote in an analysis of the proposal. “There’s nothing else [the NBP] can do,” a high-ranking government official told POLITICO, speaking on condition of anonymity, when asked if the plan involves selling gold.  Tusk on Thursday called on Nawrocki to sign the SAFE law without delay. “Poland, Polish companies, the employees of those companies and Poland’s security are waiting for money from the SAFE program … There is no room for any political games,” the PM said in a video on X.

The war in Iran will lead to delays in U.S. weapons deliveries to Europe, Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said Friday. “The U.S. industry will focus on replenishing the stockpiles used in the Middle East,” he told reporters in Warsaw. “We expect some delays in deliveries,” especially if the conflict drags on, he said, adding that makes it even more urgent for Europeans to increase their own production capabilities. He was echoed by European Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius: “Americans will not be able to provide enough for Gulf countries, Ukraine needs, and the U.S. army itself.” The U.S. and Gulf countries are now fighting against Iranian missiles and drones mainly with Patriot PAC-2 and PAC-3 interceptor missiles. U.S. officials have warned that could strain American stockpiles. It’s also having an immediate knock-on effect on deliveries. According to the Swiss press, deliveries of Patriot air defense systems to Switzerland will be delayed even further because of the war in the Middle East. Kubilius is on a so-called a missile tour in Europe, which started in Poland. He also said he was “very surprised” about the Polish dispute over the EU’s loans-for-weapons SAFE scheme. Polish President Karol Nawrocki hasn’t signed off the SAFE bill and proposed instead financing with the help of the National Bank of Poland. “Who will lose if Poland doesn’t approve SAFE? Saying no to SAFE is saying no to jobs for Polish people,” Kubilius stressed. “If Poland decided to use taxpayers’ money to buy weapons from somewhere else, that will mean Polish taxpayers money will create jobs elsewhere.”

WARSAW — Polish President Karol Nawrocki proposed Wednesday that the country’s military build-up be financed with the help of the National Bank of Poland instead of tapping the EU’s €150 billion Security Action for Europe loans-for-weapons program. The move comes amid a standoff with Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s pro-EU government over nearly €44 billion in SAFE loans earmarked for modernizing Poland’s armed forces, repayable by 2070.  “We have a concrete, Polish, safe and sovereign alternative to the SAFE program that will not involve any financial interest,” Nawrocki said, speaking alongside NBP President Adam Glapiński. The idea would be to work with the central bank to secure 185 billion złoty — equivalent to the amount Poland plans to borrow under SAFE. The president, and the opposition nationalist Law and Justice party which backs him, have both criticized SAFE, arguing it saddles Poland with decades of debt, creates an exchange rate risk because the loan is denominated in euros and not Polish złoty, and could see Brussels imposing political conditions. They also warn that contracts funded by SAFE could disproportionately benefit Western European defense firms rather than domestic producers — something the government rejects, insisting 80 percent of the cash will stay in Poland. There is also concern over angering the United States, Poland’s main ally and arms supplier, which has expressed displeasure at SAFE’s provisions limiting participation of non-EU countries. “The war in Iran and recent U.S. operations also show … above all, the effectiveness of American equipment,” Nawrocki said. Nawrocki’s announcement follows parliamentary approval of a law detailing how SAFE funds would be spent. If president vetoes the legislation, Tusk’s coalition doesn’t have enough votes in parliament to override him. However, the government insists that even with a Nawrocki veto, it would still be able to access the EU cash. But Nawrocki stressed that the SAFE money comes with strings attached. His idea, he says would mean “a concrete and secure alternative for SAFE that will not involve any interest … without credit, without changing Poland’s situation in the EU, and with the flexibility our armed forces need in selecting equipment.” Glapiński hinted that the central bank would step in with its annual profit for the purpose. Any central bank profits are channeled to state coffers, although that hasn’t happened in recent years. The NBP has also amassed 550 tons of gold, with plans to boost that to 700 tons. However, Polish law limits the ability of the central bank to finance budget expenditures. Adam Glapiński hinted that the central bank would step in with its annual profit for the purpose. | Mateusz Wlodarczyk/NurPhoto via Getty Images “We cannot use any part of the reserves in the sense that a portion would be transferred, because that would be against the law,” Glapiński said. Nawrocki said he would present further details, which would include new legislation for the parliament to work on, to Tusk and Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz as soon as Wednesday. Kosiniak-Kamysz pushed back, saying on X: “The SAFE program provides the fastest and most concrete funding for modernizing the Polish army, which is why the military, the defense industry, and all those committed to strengthening our armed forces are calling for the president to sign the [SAFE] law.” “If additional financing instruments for the army appear, the Polish Armed Forces will only benefit — not as an alternative to SAFE, but as extra resources enhancing security,” Kosiniak-Kamysz added.

Poland’s far right has merged two parties in an unsubtle attempt to dodge a court ruling a year before a parliamentary election in which it could play kingmaker. Over the weekend, New Hope (Nowa Nadzieja) formally joined forces with a newly registered outfit called The Empire Strikes Back (Imperium Kontratakuje), both of which appear to draw their names from the Star Wars movie franchise. The maneuver appears to shield New Hope from deregistration after a Warsaw court ruled in November that it should be struck from the register of political parties for failing to file its 2024 financial report on time. Libertarian firebrand Sławomir Mentzen leads New Hope and forms the backbone of Confederation (Konfederacja), the nationalist alliance that is currently Poland’s third-largest political force. Confederation holds 16 seats in the country’s parliament and polls in the low teens — enough to shape future coalitions, block legislation and potentially tip the balance in the 2027 vote. Mentzen had appealed the November court ruling, but rather than wait for the process to play out, his allies registered The Empire Strikes Back in January as a Plan B. At a closed-door congress on Saturday, delegates voted to merge the two entities, transferring New Hope’s structures and assets to the new party. Confederation officials have been blunt about their aims. “We can say that we outsmarted the system. It’s quite an original solution,” Wojciech Machulski, Confederation spokesperson and head of The Empire Strikes Back, told Polish outlet Zero.pl. Machulski described the new party as a “technical” solution to ensure continuity if the court decision is upheld. The merged entity is expected to revert to the name New Hope. With elections due in the second half of 2027, Confederation is polling at 13 percent, trailing Jarosław Kaczyński’s opposition nationalist Law and Justice (26 percent) and Donald Tusk’s ruling center-right Civic Coalition (34 percent), according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls.

WARSAW — A bitter January leadership tussle has split the ranks of Polska 2050, a centrist party within Poland’s ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Some 15 MPs left the party Wednesday after last month’s contest to replace its former leader, TV celebrity-turned-politician Szymon Hołownia, turned ugly. The losing faction accused Hołownia’s successor and the party’s new leader, Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz, of stifling criticism. The rebel MPs under challenger Paulina Hennig-Kloska vowed to stick with the Tusk-led coalition, but their political fate — and that of the ruling coalition — is uncertain ahead of a pivotal election scheduled for next year.  Tusk’s government has struggled to pass laws and fulfill its pro-Brussels pledges in the face of obstruction from its opposition right-wing arch-rival, Law and Justice (PiS), and the veto power wielded by President Karol Nawrocki, a PiS ally. Tusk’s Civic Coalition leads PiS comfortably in the polls but its coalition partners — Polska 2050 in particular — have been floundering. Polska 2050 has been polling a mere 2 percent to 3 percent support for months, below the minimum 5 percent election threshold required for representation in parliament. Tusk downplayed what he called “turbulences” in Polska 2050 and said the party’s feuding factions remained “loyal to the government.” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition leads PiS comfortably in the polls but its coalition partners — Polska 2050 in particular — have been floundering. | Michaela Stache/AFP via Getty Images “We have had to endure and overcome turbulence far greater than this over the past year. We have weathered shocks on the global, European and Polish political stage and come through them in very good condition,” Tusk said. The 15 rebel MPs under Hennig-Kloska, the climate and environment minister in the Tusk government, have formed a new parliamentary caucus named Centrum.  Hennig-Kloska said the new caucus “will regain the space to work and to deliver on the pledges from our 2023 campaign,” adding there was no room for “dialogue, genuine partnership or the pursuit of policy goals” in Polska 2050. The remains of the former Polska 2050 caucus — also numbering 15 MPs — side with Pełczyńska-Nałęcz, the minister for EU funds and regional policy. Following her win on Jan. 31, the party leadership voted to freeze personnel changes to de-escalate tensions before a March convention. Their former colleagues called the move an attempt to silence them. The turmoil also split Polska 2050’s representation in the Senate and in the European Parliament after MEP Michał Kobosko left the party Monday. Polska 2050 has been in deep crisis since Hołownia’s disastrous 2025 presidential campaign, in which he won less than 5 percent support and placed behind even far-right maverick Grzegorz Braun. Hołownia’s failed presidential bid also ended Polska 2050’s alliance with the Polish People’s Party inside the Tusk coalition. In the previous 2020 presidential election, by contrast, Hołownia had won nearly 14 percent and capitalized on that result to found Polska 2050.  The party, Hołownia said at the time, was a third option amid the ongoing feud between Civic Coalition and Law and Justice that has dominated Polish politics for over two decades. Polska 2050 was at one point neck-and-neck in the polls with Civic Coalition, but fell back after Tusk re-entered Polish politics following a prominent hiatus as head of the European Council. Hołownia slammed the MPs who left Polska 2050, saying “they hate” the party’s new leader.

A Warsaw court on Thursday evening ordered the arrest of former Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, a move that could exacerbate a diplomatic dispute between Poland and Hungary. Ziobro has been in Hungary since late last year and was granted political asylum there in January. The arrest order marks a further escalation of the political confrontation between Poland’s governing coalition led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the Law and Justice (PiS) party. Tusk has repeatedly pledged to hold PiS to account for alleged corruption during its time in power from 2015 to 2023. Ziobro is under investigation over the alleged misuse of public funds and the deployment of Pegasus spyware against political opponents, in cases pursued by prosecutors under Tusk’s center-left coalition government. He was stripped of his parliamentary immunity in November. Ziobro denies all charges and has long argued that the investigation is a political vendetta by Tusk, whom the former minister vows to fight, even from Budapest, he told POLITICO last week. “Today’s decision only serves the authorities a political purpose, as my client is in Hungary and has been granted international protection,” one of Ziobro’s lawyers, Bartosz Lewandowski, told reporters immediately after the court ruled on the arrest order. Ziobro’s political protector, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, is facing a parliamentary election in April, with pro-EU opposition challenger Péter Magyar leading in opinion polls. A change of power in Budapest could, in theory, potentially result in Ziobro losing his asylum status. Hungary previously granted asylum to former Polish Deputy Justice Minister Marcin Romanowski, who served under Ziobro. Following the court’s decision, a request for a European arrest warrant is expected early next week, prosecutors said.

WARSAW — The U.S. ambassador to Poland cut ties with the country’s speaker of parliament for “outrageous and unprovoked insults” against Donald Trump after he refused to support a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for the U.S. president. “Effective immediately, we will have no further dealings, contacts, or communications with” Parliament Speaker Włodzimierz Czarzasty, Ambassador Tom Rose wrote on X on Thursday. That sparked a response from normally strongly pro-American Prime Minster Donald Tusk. “Mr. Ambassador Rose, allies should respect, not lecture, each other. At least this is how we, here in Poland, understand partnership,” the Polish leader wrote on X. Czarzasty on Monday said Trump “does not deserve” the prize — something the U.S. president openly covets. He said Trump had disrespected Poland as an ally by saying in December that America’s NATO allies had not offered much support to the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.  Trump has also been “destabilizing” international organizations such as the U.N. and the World Health Organization, Czarzasty added. That sparked an angry response from Rose, a former right-wing broadcaster. He said Czarzasty’s “outrageous and unprovoked insults” against Trump had made the speaker “a serious impediment” to otherwise “excellent” relations with Tusk’s government. “We will not permit anyone to harm U.S.–Polish relations, nor disrespect Donald Trump, who has done so much for Poland and the Polish people,” Rose wrote. Rose also responded to Tusk’s later criticism, saying the PM should have sent the message to Czarzasty, a member of the New Left party that is part of the ruling coalition. He denounced the speaker’s “despicable, disrespectful and insulting comments about President Trump. “ The U.S. ambassador added he had “nothing but the greatest respect and admiration” for Tusk, who he called “a model ally and great friend of the United States.” However, in a later response to Polish online criticism, Rose undermined the close military ties with Poland, writing: “Should we take all our soldiers and equipment with us?” The online spat highlighted the sharp divide among key political forces in Poland over relations with the U.S. Tusk’s pro-European coalition has been wary of Trump’s transactional approach to diplomacy and of his apparent leniency toward Russia, while pro-MAGA nationalist President Karol Nawrocki underlines his close ties to Trump, who backed him in last year’s Polish presidential election. Poland is one of Europe’s most pro-American countries and a key NATO ally, however Trump’s unstable policies are shifting views. A recent survey found that 72 percent of Poles assess Trump’s policies negatively and only 28 percent are positive. Although he rejected the offer from the U.S. and Israeli speakers of parliament to support a peace prize for Trump, Czarzasty did say: “I continue to respect the U.S. as a key partner for Poland.”