WARSAW — Poland’s government on Friday put forward a proposal for civil partnerships that strains the ruling coalition, disappoints LGBTQ+ rights activists and has little chance of being signed into law by right-wing President Karol Nawrocki. The issue has haunted the four-party coalition headed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk since it won power from the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party two years ago.  Efforts to move on the issue were blocked by frictions within Tusk’s four-party coalition, with the resistance led by the agrarian Polish People’s Party (PSL). That forced the government to put forward a bill that tries to keep PSL on board, but does little to satisfy the coalition’s centrist and left-wing backers because it offers a civil partnership status that falls well short of marriage. Tusk underlined the unsatisfactory compromise that produced the legislation. “The nature of this coalition … lead to a situation where either there is complete deadlock and nothing can be done, or a compromise is sought that will certainly make people’s lives easier and more bearable … although no one will be jumping for joy,” Tusk told reporters. Nawrocki, a PiS ally, has long made clear he would oppose legal provisions establishing “quasi-marriages” or otherwise threatening the traditional institution. Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of PiS, denounced the bill on Friday, saying it was not only “grossly unconstitutional, but aims to replace traditional marriage with pseudo-unions.” PSL and PiS are long-time competitors for votes in the conservative Polish countryside, where the Roman Catholic Church still holds sway. Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, the leader of PSL, said he does not find that the proposed civil union status mirrors marriage. “It makes life easier,” he said. “It’s not a proposal of our dreams, it’s a proposal of the coalition reality and with Karol Nawrocki as president,” Katarzyna Kotula, the Left’s minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, told a press briefing in the parliament Friday, referring to months of talks with PSL on the issue. INOFFENSIVE LEGISLATION As officials presented the basics of the proposal, Kotula treaded carefully, making no direct mention of LGBTQ+ families, marriage, or adoption — all no-goes for the agrarians. “The proposal excludes any provisions related to children, such as custody or adoption. There only are practical measures intended to make life easier for Poles,” Urszula Pasławska, a PSL MP, told the briefing.  “The law would not, in any way, infringe upon or undermine the institution of marriage,” Pasławska added. Under Poland’s constitution, marriage is defined as “a union between a woman and a man.” Poles’ support for marriage equality ranges from 40 to 50 percent, depending on the poll, but backing for civil partnerships is higher. The draft legislative proposal, titled somewhat awkwardly the “law on the status of a close person in a relationship and on a cohabitation agreement,” seeks to define rights and obligations between partners in an informal relationship. It doesn’t specify the sex of the partners. The draft outlines provisions on “mutual respect, support, care, loyalty and cooperation for the common good,” Kotula said. It guarantees the right to shared housing, mutual alimony, access to each other’s medical information, exemption from inheritance and donation taxes, and joint tax filing for couples who declare shared property. The draft would also provide relief from civil transaction taxes, entitlement to a survivor’s pension, inheritance under a will, access to health insurance for both partners and care leave. But that falls far short of allowing same-sex couples to get married — something that’s increasingly common in other EU countries. The bill got tepid praise from the Campaign Against Homophobia, an NGO. “It proposes modest, cautious measures that offer a little bit of safety to those who previously had none. It’s a step forward — but so small and careful that it’s hard to see in it the courage that all families in Poland truly deserve,” it said. In the campaign’s latest annual ranking of LGBTQ+ rights, Poland is the second-lowest in the EU, a slight increase from previous years when it was last. LGBTQ+ rights organization Miłość Nie Wyklucza (Love Does Not Exclude) said the proposal does contain some progressive solutions, but it creates the danger of freezing further progress, said Hubert Sobecki, one of the group’s leaders. “What am I supposed to do now, kiss their hands in gratitude? We’re going to have two kinds of people in Poland. Those who can marry legally and enjoy all that comes with it and those who don’t,” Sobecki said.

WARSAW — Poland’s centrist government is pushing to restore the rule of law undermined by the previous populist administration — but the country’s divided politics mean the chances of success are slim. The justice ministry presented its plan on Thursday — an effort to fulfill a key election promise of the coalition government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, which took power in late 2023. The key issue is figuring out what to do with thousands of judges appointed under the former Law and Justice (PiS) party government in a process that both Polish and European courts ruled was flawed and undermined judicial independence. “We’re about to decide what to do about these so-called neo-judges and how to handle their cases so that court proceedings move faster without triggering lawsuits in European courts — mainly the European Court of Human Rights — that end up costing the Polish government in compensation,” Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek told POLITICO in an interview, adding that the previous judicial nomination process had “infected” the court system. Restoring the rule of law is the main job for Żurek, a former judge brought in by Tusk this summer to roll back PiS’s judicial overhaul and hold its officials to account. Under PiS, which ruled Poland from 2015 to 2023, relations between Warsaw and Brussels soured due to growing concerns that the government’s changes to the judicial system were undermining the EU’s democratic rules. In response, the European Commission froze billions in EU cash, while the EU’s top court levied massive fines against Poland. Just weeks after taking power, Tusk was able to get the Commission to release €137 billion on the promise that he would end the rule of law dispute by bringing Poland’s justice system back into line with EU norms. But that early effort was stymied by slow government action and by a hostile PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda, who vowed to veto any legislation undermining PiS-era legal reforms. Newly elected President Karol Nawrocki, also aligned with PiS, is also vowing to resist any changes to the system set up by the previous government. Speaking while on a visit to Estonia on Friday, Nawrocki said he would study Żurek’s proposal, but that the minister’s recent actions “do not inspire optimism,” accusing him of “brutally” violating the law and the constitution. POLITICIZING THE COURTS Poland’s problems with the rule of law date back to the political takeover of the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS) by PiS in 2018. PiS stacked the judge-appointing body with judges elected by the parliament, which the party controlled at the time, while earlier KRS members had largely been chosen by judges themselves.  Poland’s Supreme Court and Europe’s top courts — the Court of Justice of the EU and the European Court of Human Rights — found the KRS lacked independence and verdicts issued by about 2,500 KRS-appointed judges are at risk of being overturned. Restoring the rule of law is the main job for Waldemar Żurek, a former judge brought in by Tusk this summer to roll back PiS’s judicial overhaul and hold its officials to account. | Aleksander Kalka/NurPhoto via Getty Images The ECHR is currently holding off on resolving several hundred cases concerning such judges, pending Poland’s attempt to address the issue. The court gave Poland until November to fix it. According to Żurek, Poland is paying dearly for the mess PiS created as it attempted to build what he called “an authoritarian system,” in which courts would protect ruling party interests.  Poland was hit with 3 billion złoty (€700 million) in penalties from the Court of Justice of the EU, and has so far paid 5.5 million złoty in compensation for rulings issued by improperly nominated judges. The Tusk government managed to limit new nominations by the KRS, but now wants to take a sledgehammer to the system set up by PiS.  NEW COURT SYSTEM Żurek’s proposal would allow judges first appointed by the KRS to keep their jobs, but anyone who the KRS promoted would have to return to their old post, and they’d have to take part in recruitment contests to climb back up the hierarchy. KRS-appointed judges would be barred from the Supreme Court, where they currently account for about 60 percent of the justices, and that court’s top judge, Małgorzata Manowska, would be ousted. The KRS itself will also undergo an overhaul when the terms of its members expire in April. Żurek aims to use legislation enacted by PiS for the Tusk-led parliamentary majority to vote in replacements. Unlike under PiS, the list of nominees will be prepared by other judges and then presented to parliament in a bid to end the politicization of the KRS. Żurek said his reform proposal is an effort at a compromise. “There were calls to dismiss them all and make them face disciplinary proceedings. We’re not doing that,” he said. “There are different categories of these so-called neo-judges. KRS’s involvement in some nominations was very limited.”  But the reaction from PiS is fierce. “Waldemar Żurek is a man who should spend many, many years in a state prison — and I believe he will,” PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński said Tuesday.  Żurek is already under legal threat from the association of judges linked to PiS, which is pursuing a criminal complaint alleging he kept a crocodile at home in breach of Polish animal welfare regulations. “They keep bothering me about the crocodile. It’s a funny story, but I can’t talk about it right now because there’s an ongoing criminal case,” Żurek said.  A HOSTILE PRESIDENT Although Tusk’s coalition has the votes in parliament to pass his proposal, it doesn’t have the votes to override a Nawrocki veto. The Tusk government managed to limit new nominations by the KRS, but now wants to take a sledgehammer to the system set up by PiS. | Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images PiS is gearing up to battle Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition for power in the 2027 parliamentary election, and is working to scuttle the government’s program. “I believe that the president wants to bring about a change of government, so all reform bills, all bills that would even improve the lot of citizens, in my opinion, could be vetoed,” said Żurek. If the effort fails, Żurek said he has a “Plan B,” but he gave no details. That puts the government in a bind, said Jakub Jaraczewski of Reporting for Democracy, a think tank focused on rule of law issues in Europe. “You can insist on sticking to the letter of the law, but that means clinging to standards designed for a normal, democratic and pluralistic system — not one that’s broken and needs fixing,” Jaraczewski said.  “Ignoring Polish law and following EU law and the European Convention on Human Rights directly is a nice idea, but Poland is a very formalistic country. Everything here is regulated, and people expect national law to be the main reference point, not some creative reinterpretation of foreign rulings,” Jaraczewski added.

WARSAW — Poland’s new President Karol Nawrocki was sworn in Wednesday morning in what his chief political rival, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, called a “sad day.” Nawrocki, backed by the populist Law and Justice (PiS) party that ruled Poland from 2015 to 2023, slammed Tusk’s centrist government in his inaugural speech: “It is impossible to continue governing in this manner, and Poland should not look like it does today.” Nawrocki is expected to stall Tusk’s reform agenda until the next parliamentary election set for 2027, meaning the Poland is likely to see two years of political conflict and deadlock. Poland’s president has a national mandate and can propose and veto legislation (which Tusk’s coalition doesn’t have the votes to override), but the country’s domestic and foreign policies are largely under the control of the government run by the prime minister. PiS legislators clapped and chanted Nawrocki’s name during the speech, while Tusk and members of his Cabinet looked on solemnly. “I want to speak to all Poles for whom today is a sad and disappointing day. I know very well how you feel. I understand you,” Tusk said in a video published just minutes before Nawrocki’s inauguration. “We all believed that honesty, goodness, and love would prevail. What has happened puts our faith to a serious test.” Nawrocki also referenced the bitter election campaign, where he was dogged by scandals ranging from a football hooligan past to a property deal that triggered a criminal probe and accusations (which he denies) that he provided prostitutes to hotel guests while working as a security guard. He said he won “in spite of electoral propaganda and lies. In spite of political theater and in spite of the contempt,” something he said he would “forgive as a Christian.” The new president laid out his agenda until the end of his five-year term, and there are many areas that will clash with Tusk’s priorities. Nawrocki said he would block Poland’s accession to the euro, something the country is committed to as an EU member and which the government has been fitfully moving toward. “I will, of course, support relations within the European Union, but I will never agree to the European Union taking away Poland’s powers, especially in matters that are not enshrined in the European treaties,” he said. He also vowed that “Poland must return to the path of the rule of law.” That’s a jab at the Tusk’s government’s halting effort to restore judicial independence and removing judges accused of being improperly nominated under PiS — something made more difficult by resistance from outgoing PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda. Nawrocki promised to continue defending the legal system created under PiS. “I will not promote or nominate judges who undermine the constitutional and legal order of the Republic of Poland,” Nawrocki said. Tusk has tried to speed up a revamp of the judicial system under new Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek, who has already begun driving out judges whose nominations are seen as improper. In another poke at Tusk, Nawrocki indicated one of his first initiatives would concern a project to build a massive new airport in central Poland. It was one of the flagship policies of the past PiS government but has been thoroughly revised under the new government. Nawrocki also restated some key pledges from his campaign, including opposing illegal immigration and ruling out any increase in the retirement age, while calling for a plan to step up housing construction, a nod to the parliamentary left within Tusk’s increasingly fragile ruling coalition. The one area where Nawrocki is likely to see eye-to-eye with Tusk is defense. Poland has the highest military budget of any NATO country as a percentage of the economy, is a key ally of the United States and is crucial in efforts to supply weapons to Ukraine. Nawrocki pledged to “support all efforts to modernize the Polish army to make it the largest NATO land force within the European Union.” He also promised to “engage closely with the U.S.” and “lead in building a resilient and responsible security architecture on NATO’s eastern flank.”

WARSAW — Karol Nawrocki is being sworn in Wednesday for a five-year term as Poland’s president, but it’s not going to be a happy day for Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. June’s narrow electoral victory by Nawrocki — a nationalist openly allied with Donald Trump — delivered a massive body blow to the political prospects of the ruling coalition led by pro-EU centrist Tusk. That threatens to stall the legislative agenda of the EU’s fifth-largest country and to slow a push to restore rule of law that led to a breakdown of relations between Warsaw and Brussels. But there are efforts to find common cause between Nawrocki and the centrists in areas like defense — where everyone can agree Russia is the enemy. “The right-wing opposition candidate’s presidential election victory has radically changed Poland’s political dynamics, scuppering the liberal-centrist coalition government’s plans to reset its reform agenda,” wrote Aleks Szczerbiak, a professor at the University of Sussex who studies Polish politics. Nawrocki succeeds Andrzej Duda, also supported by the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, and who has slow-walked Tusk’s agenda. Nawrocki promises to be even more aggressive in hopes of painting the government as being ineffective and paving the way for PiS to return to power in 2027, the next general election. Ben Stanley, a political scientist at the SWPS University in Warsaw, predicted that Poland faces a two-year tug-of-war between Nawrocki and Tusk. DARK CLOUDS Everything looks set for a stormy showdown. A recent reshuffle of the Cabinet elevated anti-PiS hawks to government positions, signaling Tusk’s willingness to take on Nawrocki. The new Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek, a former judge persecuted by PiS for his opposition to judiciary reforms, has already started driving out judges promoted by PiS.  “It’s just a warm-up,” Tusk quipped on social media, reacting to the outrage coming from the PiS camp.  Nawrocki has called Tusk, “the worst prime minister since 1989,” referring to the year when Communism fell. One key area that is likely to see clashes is Tusk’s continuing effort to roll back changes to the judicial system imposed by the previous PiS government that led to Brussels freezing billions in EU funds over concerns about backsliding on rule of law. Karol Nawrocki has called Donald Tusk, “the worst prime minister since 1989,” referring to the year when Communism fell. | Pawel Supernak/EPA Tusk got the money back on promises to restore democratic norms. He has, however, made little progress in returning judicial independence and removing judges accused of being improperly nominated, thanks to the slowness of his government and resistance from Duda. Nawrocki will likely continue to block such changes. “The government will find it extremely difficult to unravel its Law and Justice predecessor’s judicial reforms,” wrote Szczerbiak. There are already warnings from Brussels. “It’s important for the institutions to continue to follow up on the reforms for veritable separation of power,” said Ana Catarina Mendes, the vice chair of the Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament who led on a report last year on rule of law in Poland. Nawrocki, who is able to propose legislation as president, has promised to push through popular measures like doubling the amount of tax-free income for individuals — an idea abandoned by the Tusk government over deficit worries. “Nawrocki will definitely want to put the government in a difficult position by presenting proposals aligned with the government’s earlier promises or policy goals, which the government has failed to deliver,” Stanley said. Nawrocki has pledged to tour Poland to promote his tax ideas, such as no tax for families with two or more children, lowering the VAT rate and other tax cuts that would sap the budget of tens of billions. Tusk has already fired back, saying last week: “I will not allow Mr Nawrocki, once he’s sworn in as president, to politically sabotage the government.”  Nawrocki has also promised to veto any laws that “change the shape of national identity, or surrender Poland’s sovereignty to authorities outside the Republic” — a jab at the EU, immigration policy and at issues like changing abortion laws and giving more rights to LGBTQ+ people. Tusk said: “I know the constitution by heart, especially the parts that spell out the responsibilities of the president and of the government: the president is the representative of the Polish state. The government conducts domestic and foreign policy.” LOOKING FOR COMMON GROUND But the two men do recognize that they will have to work together. In their first meeting after the election, Tusk brought up the issue of national defense and continued military support for Ukraine — issues that straddle Poland’s deep political divide. “I will seek to make security a unifying issue for all Poles,” Karol Nawrocki told Defence24, a news website, in June. | Artur Reszko/EPA “We both realize that it is in the best interest of everyone in Poland that state institutions, whether they like each other or not, must cooperate on key issues,” Tusk said in June. Nawrocki has also said that Poles “expect the president and prime minister to talk and cooperate on issues that are important to our national community.” “I will seek to make security a unifying issue for all Poles,” Nawrocki told Defence24, a news website, in June. The new president said he would like to forge an agreement between his office, the government, and the parliament to “define defense funding levels, the main directions for developing Poland’s security and defense system, as well as related capabilities and legal regulations.” But those words don’t disguise the coming clash. Tusk’s increasingly inchoate coalition is likely to ramp up its work on stalled legislation ranging from easing access to abortion through undoing PiS’s legacy in the judiciary, to holding PiS’s top brass to account for alleged crimes.  The idea would be to show that progress is being blocked by the new president. The government may decide “that it has no choice but to go for a full-frontal confrontation with Mr Nawrocki hoping that he will over-reach so that it can blame its shortcomings on presidential obstruction,” said Szczerbiak. That will leave voters in 2027 with a conundrum — back Tusk’s coalition and continue the confrontation at least until the end of Nawrocki’s first term in 2030 or allow for unified right-wing government and president. “The next election essentially will hinge around the question of whether it’s better to have a government with a president that can facilitate it, or whether it’s better to ensure that we don’t have a return to 2015-2023, where both sides of the executive were essentially complicit in democratic backsliding,” said Stanley, referring to PiS’s previous term in power. That means one of the EU’s fastest-growing economies, a close friend of the United States with the highest percentage levels of defense spending in NATO and a crucial ally in helping keep Ukraine in the fight against Russia, faces years of drift. Max Griera contributed reporting from Brussels.

WARSAW — One-time Polish political wunderkind Szymon Hołownia is emerging as a weak link who could threaten Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist pro-EU coalition. Tusk has been trying to give his coalition some fresh momentum after the nationalist Karol Nawrocki won a tightly contested presidential election on June 1, and is planning a cabinet reshuffle next week. Tusk’s big problem, however, is that the incoming right-wing president — backed by the Law and Justice party (PiS) — will be able to veto his key reforms, putting huge strain on the coalition. This is where Hołownia, now parliament speaker, is proving a problem for Tusk. His Polska 2050 party has a crucial 31 seats that help Tusk keep his majority, but he has been accused of flirting with PiS. Hołownia admitted to meeting top PiS officials earlier this month, including Chairman Jarosław Kaczyński, for unspecified late-night talks in an apartment belonging to Adam Bielan, a PiS MEP. This triggered intense speculation about his motives, but Hołownia denied claims PiS was offering to back him as a new prime minister in a government with PiS. “I am one of the few politicians in Poland who — I emphasize — regularly meets with representatives of both deeply divided camps,” Hołownia said on X after news of his meeting with PiS became public. “I firmly believe that — especially in times like these — politicians from different sides should talk to one another, or we’ll end up tearing each other apart. I consider this normal, not an exception,” Hołownia said. Despite his insistence he wasn’t plotting with PiS, the late hour of the meeting and the location in a private apartment of a PiS official mean the controversy has stuck and Hołownia’s party is now slumping in the polls. Polska 2050 came in at just 2.8 percent in a poll by United Surveys for Wirtualna Polska, a news website, published Wednesday. That is well below the 5 percent threshold a party needs to win seats in the parliament. Before turning to politics, Hołownia was a media figure, known for co-hosting Poland’s version of the Got Talent series and for his work in Catholic media. He launched a 2020 presidential campaign as a centrist outsider on a pro-European, socially progressive and economically moderate platform. He performed respectably in the 2020 election, gaining 14 percent of the vote and enough clout to start his own party. Szymon Hołownia was elected speaker of the parliament in November 2023. | Marcin Obara/EPA This year, he fared much worse in the presidential contest, winning less than 5 percent of the vote. That has weakened him ahead of the cabinet reshuffle, as he trailed not just the far right’s Sławomir Mentzen but also extremist Grzegorz Braun, who is now facing a criminal investigation into alleged Holocaust denial. In the 2023 general election, Hołownia’s Polska 2050 entered a centrist coalition with the agrarian PSL, forming the so-called Third Way group that contributed to the opposition bloc that unseated the PiS government. Hołownia was elected speaker of the parliament in November 2023. Polska 2050 and PSL have subsequently parted ways. Given that Hołownia is expected to hand over his post as speaker in November to a figure picked by fellow coalition party the New Left, the risk is that Polska 2050 will now be sidelined. If a new election were held now, polls show the coalition would lose its majority to PiS if the latter goes for cooperation with the far right.