{"version":"1.9","identifier":"9933e490-f6a3-4b1b-a8d4-8d2e65027a18","language":"en-US","title":"Third Polish ambassador steps down as Sikorski accuses Nawrocki of pressing envoys to quit","layout":{"columns":7,"width":1024,"margin":32,"gutter":20},"componentLayouts":{"text":{"columnStart":0,"columnSpan":7,"maximumContentWidth":720,"margin":{"top":12,"bottom":12}},"photo":{"columnStart":0,"columnSpan":7,"margin":{"top":20,"bottom":20}}},"componentTextStyles":{"default":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":18,"lineHeight":29,"textColor":"#171717"},"headline":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue-Bold","fontSize":36,"lineHeight":42,"conditional":[{"conditions":{"maxViewportWidth":480},"fontSize":28,"lineHeight":34}]},"intro":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":20,"lineHeight":28,"textColor":"#555555"},"caption":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":13,"lineHeight":19,"textColor":"#666666"},"byline":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":13,"lineHeight":20,"textColor":"#666666"},"body":{"fontName":"HelveticaNeue","fontSize":18,"lineHeight":29,"paragraphSpacingAfter":14,"linkStyle":{"textColor":"#00704a"}}},"metadata":{"canonicalURL":"https://567politics.com/news/poland-ambassadors-resign-sikorski-nawrocki-tusk-tribunal-november-2026","datePublished":"2026-11-03T00:13:19.777373Z","dateModified":"2026-11-03T00:14:07.935288Z","authors":["567politics News Desk"],"excerpt":"Tusk says the court dispute ends when the president recognizes parliament's judges. The president's office says Tusk must move first.","thumbnailURL":"https://pub-fac99da959e344fe99d810d309cef7df.r2.dev/photos/article/9933e490-f6a3-4b1b-a8d4-8d2e65027a18/2d41a6359bf9125b75b555827f7b8389.jpg","keywords":["pl"],"generatorName":"Frog News","generatorVersion":"1.0"},"components":[{"role":"title","text":"Third Polish ambassador steps down as Sikorski accuses Nawrocki of pressing envoys to quit","textStyle":"headline","layout":"text"},{"role":"intro","text":"Tusk says the court dispute ends when the president recognizes parliament's judges. The president's office says Tusk must move first.","textStyle":"intro","layout":"text"},{"role":"byline","text":"By 567politics News Desk · Published November 3, 2026","textStyle":"byline","layout":"text"},{"role":"photo","URL":"https://pub-fac99da959e344fe99d810d309cef7df.r2.dev/photos/article/9933e490-f6a3-4b1b-a8d4-8d2e65027a18/2d41a6359bf9125b75b555827f7b8389.jpg","caption":"The seat of Poland's Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw (2016 photo) · Adrian Grycuk, CC BY-SA 3.0 PL (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/pl/deed.en), via Wikimedia Commons","accessibilityCaption":"The seat of Poland's Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw (2016 photo)","layout":"photo"},{"role":"caption","text":"The seat of Poland's Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw (2016 photo) · Adrian Grycuk, CC BY-SA 3.0 PL (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/pl/deed.en), via Wikimedia Commons","textStyle":"caption","layout":"text"},{"role":"body","format":"markdown","text":"Poland's ambassador to the United Nations asked on Monday to leave his post early. He is the third Polish envoy to step down since Friday night, when judges elected by the current parliament moved to take control of the Constitutional Tribunal. Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said President Karol Nawrocki had personally pressed ambassadors to resign. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the dispute could end quickly if the president recognized the judges parliament had chosen. The president's office said the first move must come from Tusk.\n\nThe exchanges came a day before a meeting that could test who controls the court. Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, who says she is now running the tribunal, has called a general assembly of its judges for Tuesday. It is not clear that enough judges will attend for the meeting to count.\n\nThis story follows our earlier reports on [the Friday suspension of the tribunal's president](https://567politics.com/news/poland-constitutional-tribunal-swieczkowski-suspended-nawrocki-october-2026) and [the European Commission's view that Poland's parliament can appoint the court's judges](https://567politics.com/news/poland-eu-commission-backs-sejm-constitutional-court-judges-tusk-november-2026). It covers what changed on Monday, November 2.\n\n## Three ambassadors leave\n\nForeign ministry spokesman Maciej Wewiór announced the latest departure on X. \"Ambassador Krzysztof Szczerski approached the minister of foreign affairs with a request to cut short his diplomatic mission to the UN. Minister Sikorski granted this request,\" he wrote, [according to the Polish Press Agency (PAP)](https://www.pap.pl/en/news/polands-ambassador-un-cut-short-mission-foreign-ministry-says). Szczerski will leave New York later this month.\n\nSzczerski has led Poland's UN mission since 2021. Before that he ran international policy in the office of former President Andrzej Duda, PAP reported. [Notes from Poland reported](https://notesfrompoland.com/2026/11/02/polish-ambassador-to-un-becomes-third-envoy-to-resign-amid-crisis-over-constitutional-court/) that he had earlier been a member of the European Parliament for the Law and Justice party (PiS), which governed Poland from 2015 to 2023.\n\nTwo other envoys had already quit. Jakub Kumoch, the ambassador to China, resigned on Friday. Paweł Soloch, the ambassador to Romania, resigned on Saturday. Both linked their decisions to the events at the tribunal. Soloch wrote that the \"attempt to unlawfully take over the Constitutional Tribunal\" left him with \"no possibility of continuing to serve as ambassador,\" Notes from Poland reported. Kumoch called his decision \"a matter of conscience.\" He said \"there are certain things I cannot explain abroad without losing face, and I have no intention of speaking ill of Poland.\"\n\nSzczerski has not explained his reasons in public, according to Notes from Poland. Marcin Przydacz, who heads the International Policy Bureau in the president's office, drew his own conclusion. \"Following the Polish ambassadors to China and Romania, this is now the third high-ranking diplomat who refuses to lend his name to the lawlessness of Donald Tusk's government. The context is obvious,\" he wrote on X, PAP reported.\n\nAll three men worked closely with Duda, who is aligned with PiS. Kumoch sat on Duda's National Development Council. Soloch headed Duda's National Security Bureau from 2015 to 2022, Notes from Poland reported.\n\n## Sikorski blames the president\n\nSikorski spoke to reporters in parliament on Monday. He said he first \"thought the president's staff had been urging ambassadors to resign,\" but it later \"turned out that the president himself was doing it,\" [Polish Radio's English service reported](https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7784/artykul/3748470,polands-fm-accuses-oppositionallied-president-of%C2%A0pressuring-ambassadors-to-resign-amid-top-court-row). \"That is not the president's role, forcing Polish ambassadors to resign,\" he said. He added that pressure was also \"being exerted\" on candidates for future ambassador posts.\n\nSikorski argued that Poland's constitution gives the president a mostly ceremonial role. \"The president can, at his own discretion, give someone a state decoration, grant someone Polish citizenship or pardon someone, but he cannot choose judges and he cannot choose ambassadors,\" he said. He also said: \"The president in Poland is not the Sun King. He has powers defined by the constitution.\"\n\nHe rejected calls for a fresh start on the court. \"No reset is needed,\" he said. Sikorski accused Nawrocki of trying to turn Poland into a \"presidential republic\" without changing the constitution, by refusing to swear in judges and by what Sikorski called physical pressure.\n\nThe foreign minister also criticized the president's Saturday talks with party leaders. Those talks included Grzegorz Braun, a far-right member of the European Parliament who leads the Confederation of the Polish Crown. Polish Radio reported that Braun's immunity has been lifted so that he can face several charges. Sikorski said he was \"very surprised that Mr. President has gone so far.\"\n\nNawrocki's office has not publicly answered Sikorski's claim about the ambassadors, as far as the reports we reviewed show. We will add its response if it gives one.\n\n## Tusk: \"Resolving the conflict is simple\"\n\nTusk set out his terms in a post on X on Monday. \"Resolving the conflict is straightforward and can be done without amending the Constitution,\" he wrote, [PAP reported](https://www.pap.pl/aktualnosci/tusk-says-tribunal-dispute-rests-nawrocki-recognising-judges). \"The President recognizes the judges lawfully appointed by the Sejm, as required by the Constitution, and they take up their duties at the Tribunal.\" The Sejm is the lower house of parliament.\n\nHe accused Nawrocki of \"opting for a forceful confrontation, which could cost Poland dearly.\" PAP said Tusk also wrote that a democratic state cannot give way to violence. Tusk linked the unrest at the court to PiS, the right-wing Confederation party, Braun and the president.\n\nOn Saturday, Tusk had told the nation in a televised address that on some issues \"there can be no compromise,\" [Notes from Poland reported](https://notesfrompoland.com/2026/11/02/polish-ambassador-to-un-becomes-third-envoy-to-resign-amid-crisis-over-constitutional-court/). [Euronews reported](https://www.euronews.com/2026/11/02/donald-tusk-calls-on-polish-president-to-confirm-judges-as-constitutional-court-crisis-rum) Monday's post as a call for the president to confirm the judges.\n\nJustice Minister Waldemar Żurek dismissed the right's defense of the constitution. \"It's the old 'catch the thief!' trick,\" he told [Politico Europe's Brussels Playbook](https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/brussels-playbook-capitals/big-wobble-in-warsaw/). He accused Nawrocki of walking into the tribunal as if it were his own palace.\n\n## The president's office: \"The president cannot solve this problem on his own\"\n\nNawrocki's aides say the government created the crisis and must fix it. Presidential spokesman Rafał Leśkiewicz told the private broadcaster Polsat News that there are several ways to handle the dispute. \"But a concrete initiative must come from the man who ruined it all. That is to say, from Prime Minister Donald Tusk, from the government and from the Polish parliament,\" he said, PAP reported. \"After all, the president cannot solve this problem on his own.\"\n\nPrzydacz made the president's case to a European audience on Monday morning. He told [Euronews](https://www.euronews.com/video/2026/11/02/absolutely-no-legal-basis-for-chaotic-scenes-in-polands-top-court-says-polish-secretary-of) there was \"absolutely no legal basis for such behavior.\" He said judges on the tribunal \"should be legitimate legal judges, not Tusk's judges.\" He said there was \"a need for any kind of a restart.\"\n\nZbigniew Bogucki, who heads the president's office, wrote on X that Tusk had crossed \"all boundaries.\" He called the police presence on the court grounds and \"the actions taken there\" unlawful, Polish Radio reported.\n\nAfter leaving the court early on Saturday, Nawrocki declared the situation a breach of the constitutional order and called urgent talks among party leaders, PAP reported. Sikorski's Civic Coalition did not take part in those talks, Polish Radio reported.\n\n## How the court got here\n\nThe fight over the tribunal began long before Friday. In 2015, Duda and the new PiS government refused to accept three judges chosen by the previous parliament and installed three of their own. Notes from Poland describes that step as unlawful. Tusk's coalition took power in December 2023. It does not recognize the tribunal as lawfully composed and has ignored its rulings since then.\n\nThis year, the coalition began filling the court's vacancies. Parliament elected eight judges. Nawrocki has refused to swear in five of them, Notes from Poland reported. The government has condemned both Nawrocki and the tribunal's then-president, Bogdan Święczkowski, for refusing to accept those judges.\n\nOn Friday, October 30, the eight new judges entered the court building. Korwin-Piotrowska, one of them, announced that Święczkowski and Vice President Bartłomiej Sochański were suspended for one month and that she had taken charge. Riot police surrounded the building. Święczkowski called the move unlawful and an attempted \"coup d'état,\" Notes from Poland reported. The six other judges appointed under PiS back him.\n\nNawrocki turned his plane around on the way to Senegal and went to the court after midnight. [Politico Europe reported](https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/brussels-playbook-capitals/big-wobble-in-warsaw/) that he pushed past Korwin-Piotrowska and other judges at the entrance and told them: \"You are not real judges.\"\n\nThe court has 15 seats. The split below is based on the reporting we reviewed. It counts the judges by which parliament chose them, not by whether each side accepts them.\n\n**Constitutional Tribunal judges by the parliament that chose them**\n\nThe 15-seat court. A general assembly normally needs 10 judges present. Five of the eight newer judges have not been sworn in by the president.","textStyle":"body","layout":"text"},{"role":"htmltable","html":"<table><tr><th>Group</th><th>Judges</th></tr><tr><td>Elected by current parliament (2026)</td><td>8</td></tr><tr><td>Appointed while PiS held a majority</td><td>7</td></tr></table>","layout":"text"},{"role":"body","format":"markdown","text":"Source: [Notes from Poland](https://notesfrompoland.com/2026/11/02/polish-ambassador-to-un-becomes-third-envoy-to-resign-amid-crisis-over-constitutional-court/)\n\n## What happens on Tuesday\n\nKorwin-Piotrowska has called a general assembly of the tribunal for Tuesday afternoon. Politico Europe reported that she wants to unite the court's divided membership and start disciplinary proceedings against the suspended leaders. A valid assembly normally needs 10 judges, Notes from Poland reported. The eight newer judges are expected to attend. The judges appointed under PiS appear unlikely to do so. That would leave the meeting two short of the usual quorum. [Polish Radio reported](https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7784/artykul/3748407,polish-pm-says-court-standoff-can-be-resolved-without-changing-the-constitution) that the assembly is expected to approve the court's 2027 budget. Korwin-Piotrowska has also said she will add a random draw to pick the panels that would hear the disciplinary cases against Święczkowski and Sochański.\n\nThe president's side does not accept the new leadership. Święczkowski and the six other PiS-era judges say he remains the court's lawful president.\n\nJudges of the Supreme Court are also due to meet on Tuesday, as our earlier report on the Commission's position noted.\n\n## The view from abroad\n\nThe dispute has drawn comment from outside Poland. European Commissioner Michael McGrath has said that choosing new judges lies within the powers of Poland's parliament, [Fox News reported](https://www.foxnews.com/world/polands-constitutional-crisis-deepens-prime-minister-tusk-faces-accusations-power-grab).\n\nTom Rose, the U.S. ambassador to Poland, urged restraint. \"America is on Poland's side,\" he wrote on X, according to Fox News. \"Poland has come too far and accomplished too much to let political differences, no matter how strongly felt, put any of that at risk.\"\n\nFrench opposition leader [Marine Le Pen](https://567politics.com/politicians/marine-le-pen) criticized Brussels. She wrote on X that the suspension and the use of security forces appeared to resemble a forced takeover of a constitutional body, [Euronews reported](https://www.euronews.com/2026/11/02/le-pen-condemns-polands-constitutional-tribunal-crisis-sikorski-tells-her-not-to-interfere). She also complained about \"the indifference of the European Union.\" Sikorski answered her directly. \"Ms Le Pen, as a friend and ally of France, Poland does not interfere in your politics. We ask you to respect us by not interfering in ours,\" he wrote. Le Pen is herself waiting on [a court ruling on whether she can run for office in France](https://567politics.com/news/france-le-pen-eligibility-cassation-appeal-guerin-heitz-november-2026).\n\nOutside analysts disagree about how to read the events. Simone Rodan-Benzaquen of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank, told Fox News that Poland \"has been living with a deeply compromised Constitutional Tribunal for more than a decade.\" She said the methods used on Friday \"raise serious questions about the legality and proportionality.\" Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation, another Washington think tank, called the events \"an attempted coup by Donald Tusk.\" Boštjan Udovič, a professor at the University of Ljubljana, rejected that description. \"Tusk wants to restore the situation as required by the constitution and the international institutions,\" he told Fox News.\n\nNotes from Poland reported that a number of legal experts who strongly criticized PiS's handling of the courts have also doubted how the new judges took control.\n\n## The politics behind it\n\nPoland holds a parliamentary election next year. Politico Europe reported that the crisis is drawing the divided right closer together. PiS co-founder Jarosław Kaczyński and Braun both joined the protest outside the court. \"There are plenty of differences between our programs. But ending Prime Minister Tusk's government is the fundamental common goal,\" Anna Bryłka, a vice president of the Confederation party, told Politico.\n\nKaczyński recently [floated talks on leaving the European Union as a pressure tactic](https://567politics.com/news/poland-kaczynski-eu-withdrawal-talks-tusk-referendum-october-2026).\n\nPolitico also noted that the crisis could remind voters who backed Tusk in 2023 why they did so, since restoring the rule of law was one of his central promises.\n\n## What we could not confirm\n\nWe could not confirm whether Nawrocki spoke to any of the three ambassadors before they resigned. That claim comes from Sikorski. Przydacz, in the president's office, has presented the resignations as a protest against the government. We also could not confirm how many judges will attend Tuesday's assembly until it takes place.\n\nThis story relies on official statements and on reporting by PAP, Polish Radio, Notes from Poland, Politico Europe, Euronews and Fox News. Quotes from posts on X are taken from those reports. Read how we handle sources in [our methodology](https://567politics.com/methodology).","textStyle":"body","layout":"text"}]}