{"version":"1.9","identifier":"2c12fddc-9e75-4b79-adc8-3566cbf95463","language":"en-US","title":"EU Commission says Poland's parliament can appoint tribunal judges as Tusk rules out compromise","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-eu-commission-backs-sejm-constitutional-court-judges-tusk-november-2026","datePublished":"2026-11-01T16:10:56.370142Z","dateModified":"2026-11-02T19:28:36.618773Z","authors":["567 Politics staff"],"excerpt":"Brussels backed the Sejm's power to fill the court but did not endorse the chief justice's suspension, while Nawrocki's talks yielded a reset plan and a coalition split.","thumbnailURL":"https://pub-fac99da959e344fe99d810d309cef7df.r2.dev/photos/article/2c12fddc-9e75-4b79-adc8-3566cbf95463/d6d6eb7fe9e976b31350fdbeb59a00b2.jpg","keywords":["pl"],"generatorName":"Frog News","generatorVersion":"1.0"},"components":[{"role":"title","text":"EU Commission says Poland's parliament can appoint tribunal judges as Tusk rules out compromise","textStyle":"headline","layout":"text"},{"role":"intro","text":"Brussels backed the Sejm's power to fill the court but did not endorse the chief justice's suspension, while Nawrocki's talks yielded a reset plan and a coalition split.","textStyle":"intro","layout":"text"},{"role":"byline","text":"By 567 Politics staff · Published November 1, 2026","textStyle":"byline","layout":"text"},{"role":"photo","URL":"https://pub-fac99da959e344fe99d810d309cef7df.r2.dev/photos/article/2c12fddc-9e75-4b79-adc8-3566cbf95463/d6d6eb7fe9e976b31350fdbeb59a00b2.jpg","caption":"The Constitutional Tribunal building in Warsaw (2012 file photo). · Wistula / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)","accessibilityCaption":"The Constitutional Tribunal building in Warsaw (2012 file photo).","layout":"photo"},{"role":"caption","text":"The Constitutional Tribunal building in Warsaw (2012 file photo). · Wistula / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)","textStyle":"caption","layout":"text"},{"role":"body","format":"markdown","text":"The European Commission has stepped into Poland's fight over its Constitutional Tribunal, saying the power to appoint the court's new judges belongs to the Sejm, the lower house of parliament. Brussels gave its statements to Euronews on Saturday, October 31, and to Politico Europe on Sunday, November 1. They came as Prime Minister Donald Tusk told the country in a televised address that \"in certain matters there can be no compromise.\" President Karol Nawrocki spent Saturday afternoon in crisis talks with party leaders, which Tusk's own Civic Coalition did not attend. Several of those leaders, including two from Tusk's coalition, proposed resetting the entire court; the opposition proposed replacing the government.\n\nThe weekend did not settle who runs the Tribunal. It did show where the main actors stand before two meetings set for Tuesday, November 3: one of Tribunal judges, called by the judge who claims to lead the court, and one of Supreme Court judges, called by that court's first president to discuss \"threats to the constitutional order.\"\n\nThis article follows our earlier report on the [suspension of Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski and Nawrocki's overnight visit to the court](https://567politics.com/news/poland-constitutional-tribunal-swieczkowski-suspended-nawrocki-october-2026). That report sets out the legal arguments on both sides in more detail. Quotations from Polish-language sources are 567politics translations unless an English version is linked.\n\n## What the Commission said\n\nA Commission spokesperson spoke to [Euronews](https://www.euronews.com/2026/11/01/eu-commission-polish-parliament-has-right-to-appoint-judges-to-the-constitutional-court) on Saturday. \"It is for the Polish authorities to ensure that the Constitutional Tribunal can function in accordance with the Polish constitution and in respect of the relevant case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union.\" The spokesperson added: \"The appointment of eight new members of the Constitutional Tribunal lies within the constitutional power of the Sejm, Poland's parliament.\" The spokesperson also cited the European Court of Human Rights. On May 5, 2026, that court issued interim measures. They required Polish authorities \"to refrain from hindering the taking up and exercise of judicial duties by judges appointed by the Sejm in March 2026.\"\n\nOn Sunday, Michael McGrath, the commissioner responsible for democracy, justice and the rule of law, gave [Politico Europe](https://www.politico.eu/article/european-commission-backs-donald-tusk-over-poland-constitutional-court-judges/) a similar statement. \"The Polish Constitutional Tribunal needs to be able to function in accordance with the Polish constitution and the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU,\" he said. \"This matters for every Polish citizen, and it is for the Polish authorities to ensure that.\" He added that \"the Venice Commission has been clear that appointing the new judges lies within the power of the Sejm.\"\n\nTwo limits on the Commission's position matter. First, Politico reported that McGrath \"stopped short of endorsing\" the October 30 suspension of Święczkowski and his deputy, Bartłomiej Sochański, which is the act that set off the latest confrontation. Supporting parliament's right to elect judges is not the same as supporting the specific method the new judges used to take control of the building. Second, the Commission has not announced any formal step, such as an infringement procedure; both outlets describe it as monitoring the situation. [Al Jazeera, citing AFP](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/11/1/polish-president-holds-crisis-talks-in-court-standoff), reported that the Commission urged Nawrocki to accept the nomination of the new judges.\n\nThe Venice Commission, which McGrath cited, is the Council of Europe's advisory body on constitutional law. As summarized by [TVP World in a report republished by the Kyiv Post](https://www.kyivpost.com/post/88774), its October opinion called the president's role in swearing in judges ceremonial. It said he should administer the oath without delay and not review parliament's choice. The president's office has said such opinions are not binding.\n\n## Tusk's address: \"no compromise\"\n\nTusk spoke at 8 p.m. on Saturday. According to [PAP, the Polish state news agency](https://www.pap.pl/en/news/tusk-rules-out-compromise-constitutional-court-crisis-deepens), he called the conflict \"yet another stage in the destruction of the rule of law in Poland by PiS.\" PiS is the Law and Justice party, which governed from 2015 to 2023. Tusk also said \"nobody had any doubt that the Tribunal, in the shape imposed by PiS, is not a real court.\" He said Nawrocki and his predecessor, Andrzej Duda, had blocked his coalition's earlier bills on the courts.\n\n[Euronews](https://www.euronews.com/2026/10/31/poland-crisis-donald-tusk-strikes-defiant-tone-vowing-no-compromise-on-rule-of-law-after-t) quoted his account of the past year: \"We waited calmly for new judges to be chosen, until the terms of their predecessors appointed by PiS expired. The Sejm made its choice, the judges took the oath, but the president did not deign to receive that oath.\" He compared calls for a deal to a thief who steals an elderly woman's handbag. The thief then accuses others of violence when they try to get it back. He also said no politician, including the president, may enter a court, give orders to judges or intimidate them. That was a reference to Nawrocki's arrival at the Tribunal shortly before 1 a.m. on Saturday after he turned back his plane to Senegal.\n\n[Polskie Radio's English service](https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7784/artykul/3748058,polish-pm-rejects-compromise-as-president-holds-talks-with-party-leaders), also citing PAP, quoted a further line: \"Shouting, lies and brawling cannot be the source of law in Poland.\" Euronews reported that Tusk warned of Russian bots. In his assessment, they were supporting opponents of Poland's constitutional order. He also pledged to give the Tribunal the security it needs. Euronews also noted that the speech \"offered no concrete agreement with Nawrocki or detailed plan to resolve the dispute.\" The claim about Russian bot activity is Tusk's assessment; 567politics did not find published evidence quantifying such activity around this dispute.\n\n## Nawrocki's consultations\n\nNawrocki said he called the \"urgent\" talks \"due to the threat to Poland's internal security\" created by the suspension, according to Al Jazeera. His office had earlier described the events of Friday night as \"a forcible takeover of a constitutional body,\" as [Notes from Poland](https://notesfrompoland.com/2026/10/31/polish-president-in-physical-confrontation-with-judges-amid-power-struggle-at-constitutional-court/) reported.\n\nThe meetings at the presidential palace began at 1 p.m. PAP and Polskie Radio reported the following proposals:\n\n* **A \"constitutional reset.\"** Deputy Prime Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, leader of the Polish People's Party (PSL), and Szymon Hołownia of Poland 2050, both members of Tusk's coalition, urged a reset. Adrian Zandberg of the left-wing Razem (Together) party, which is outside the government, proposed ending the terms of all current Tribunal judges and electing a new bench by a constitutional majority. Krzysztof Bosak and Sławomir Mentzen of the right-wing Confederation presented their own reset plan and said the president received it with \"great approval,\" according to PAP.\n* **A change of government.** Former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who now leads the Development Plus (Rozwój Plus) faction, and Marcin Horała proposed a constructive vote of no confidence. Under their plan, former Sejm speaker Marek Jurek would lead a caretaker government until the scheduled 2027 election. Morawiecki said the choice of candidate was open to discussion.\n* **No public statement.** PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński and the party's parliamentary leader, Mariusz Błaszczak, met Nawrocki but declined to comment afterwards, PAP reported.\n\nKosiniak-Kamysz explained his position on X: \"In the current situation, when trust in the Constitutional Tribunal is ruined, citizens have no institution that would guard their rights,\" he wrote. He called a reset \"the only chance for a gradual return to normality around the \\[Constitutional Tribunal],\" as quoted by Polskie Radio. Earlier on Saturday, Hołownia wrote on X that his party regarded Friday's events as bringing \"shame on Poland,\" according to Notes from Poland. He criticized Święczkowski and the PiS-nominated judges but said fixing the court \"by force\" would \"exacerbate its downfall.\"\n\nCivic Coalition said its invitation arrived by text message too late to attend, according to PAP. The Left and the Centre group refused. The Left's parliamentary leader, Anna Maria Żukowska, wrote that \"one cannot accept an invitation from someone who is himself responsible for the current situation.\" The Centre said \"you do not extinguish a fire with the arsonist.\"\n\nAl Jazeera reported that no breakthrough had emerged by Saturday afternoon, and 567politics found no announced agreement as of Sunday morning in Warsaw.\n\n## The arguments for the government's approach\n\nThe government and its allies make three main points. First, European courts have found that three judges were unlawfully appointed under PiS, [as Notes from Poland summarizes](https://notesfrompoland.com/2026/10/31/polish-president-in-physical-confrontation-with-judges-amid-power-struggle-at-constitutional-court/). The Commission and the European Court of Human Rights have now both said parliament's March 2026 appointees should be able to work. Second, the Venice Commission has said the president cannot use the swearing-in to veto parliament's choice. Third, they point to the court's paralysis. Its president refused to admit a majority of the bench, and it could not convene its General Assembly or adopt a budget. In their view, such a court was not doing its constitutional job. Tusk said his coalition had tried legislative routes first and was blocked. On this view, a reset negotiated with the president would reward the obstruction it is meant to end; Tusk's handbag analogy makes that argument.\n\nThe weakest point in this case, which the government's own allies have raised, is the legal mechanism. As our earlier article reported, some lawyers who have long criticized PiS's judicial changes said the provision used to suspend Święczkowski does not apply to the Tribunal. The Commission statements do not address that question.\n\n## The arguments against it\n\nThe president, PiS, Confederation and Development Plus argue that the government has taken control of a constitutional body by force and outside the law. Their central legal point is that the constitution requires judges to take their oath before the president. On this reading, judges whose oath he did not receive cannot suspend the court's president. They also argue that the Venice Commission's opinion is advisory and that Polish law, not European bodies, sets the president's powers.\n\nOutside Poland, the co-chairs of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament backed Nawrocki. \"The Tusk government's actions constitute a clear and grave violation of the rule of law. We condemn this attack on judicial independence and Poland's constitutional safeguards. No government stands above the law,\" co-chair Nicola Procaccini said, according to Euronews. He said European institutions \"must not avert their eyes\" and that judicial independence must be \"unaffected by political alliances.\" The Commission's statements rest its position on Court of Justice case law, the European Court of Human Rights' interim measures and the Venice Commission opinion.\n\nThe opposition and the Tribunal's own X account have called the events a coup. Those words, and Morawiecki's call on X for an immediate no-confidence vote against the government \"for bringing \\[the country] to the brink of civil war,\" [as embedded by Polskie Radio](https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7784/artykul/3748058,polish-pm-rejects-compromise-as-president-holds-talks-with-party-leaders), are characterizations by participants, not findings of any court.\n\n## A third position: reset the whole bench\n\nThe proposal with the widest spread of support on Saturday came from neither main camp. A reset backed by PSL, Poland 2050, Razem and Confederation would end the current dispute over individual judges by replacing the whole bench through a supermajority vote. Supporters see it as the only route both the government and the president might accept. Neither side would have to concede that the other's appointees were legitimate.\n\nThe plan has clear obstacles. A constitutional majority requires votes that neither the governing coalition nor the opposition has alone, and Tusk rejected compromise in his address the same evening. TVP World analyst Stuart Dowell, writing in the piece republished by the Kyiv Post, noted a further risk: even if a deal is reached, \"if the right returns to power, it could attempt to reverse whatever changes are made now, setting off yet another round of constitutional warfare.\" The reset proposal also exposes a split inside Tusk's coalition: PSL and Poland 2050 went to talks that Civic Coalition, the Left and the Centre group stayed away from.\n\n## What polling shows\n\nNo representative poll measuring reaction to the October 30 suspension or the weekend's talks had been published by Sunday morning, as far as 567politics could find. Two polls taken shortly before the escalation give context.\n\nAn [SW Research poll for the weekly Wprost](https://dorzeczy.pl/kraj/964254/sondaz-swieczkowskiego.html) was conducted October 27–28, 2026. It used online interviews with 800 adults on the company's internet panel, with a sample representative by sex, age and town size. It asked whether Święczkowski should step down as Tribunal president. Of respondents, 39.8% said yes, 21.3% said no and 38.9% had no clear opinion. The published summary did not state a margin of error. Online panels are not probability samples, so a conventional margin of error does not strictly apply.\n\nAn [IBRiS poll for Rzeczpospolita](https://wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/polityka/7,198012,33103838,spor-o-trybunal-konstytucyjny-polacy-odpowiedzieli-w-sondazu.html), conducted October 16–17 among a representative sample of 1,068 people, asked who was right in the Tribunal dispute. Of respondents, 32.7% said neither, 32.0% chose Nawrocki and 27.8% chose Tusk. Among governing-coalition voters, 73% backed Tusk; among opposition voters, 60% backed Nawrocki. The summary did not state the interview method or margin of error.\n\nThe two polls asked different questions and should not be combined. Read together, they suggest two things about the period before October 30. A plurality of respondents wanted Święczkowski to go. Yet no side had majority support on the wider dispute, and many people were undecided or rejected both leaders. Social media reaction since then is not a measure of public opinion.\n\n## Context\n\nThe dispute dates to 2015, when the outgoing Civic Platform majority and the incoming PiS majority each moved to fill seats on the 15-member bench. Our earlier coverage explains how parliament elected eight new judges in 2026 and why Nawrocki swore in only three of them. A separate row the same week over [Kaczyński's comments on EU exit talks](https://567politics.com/news/poland-kaczynski-eu-withdrawal-talks-tusk-referendum-october-2026) has also sharpened the dispute between the government and the opposition ahead of the 2027 parliamentary election.\n\n## What to watch\n\n* **Tuesday's Tribunal assembly.** [Politico Europe reported](https://www.politico.eu/article/european-commission-backs-donald-tusk-over-poland-constitutional-court-judges/) that Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, who claims to lead the court, has convened an assembly of Tribunal judges for Tuesday. Whether it reaches a quorum, and whether the president and opposition recognize anything it decides, is open.\n* **Tuesday's Supreme Court assembly.** First President of the Supreme Court Zbigniew Kapiński has summoned an extraordinary General Assembly of Supreme Court judges for November 3 to debate \"threats to the constitutional order\" and adopt a resolution on judicial independence, PAP reported.\n* **A no-confidence motion.** Morawiecki's plan would need a parliamentary majority behind a named replacement prime minister. Whether PiS, Confederation and any coalition party would back it is unclear.\n* **Brussels.** The Commission says it is monitoring the situation. Any formal step would be a new development.\n\nOur [methodology page](https://567politics.com/methodology) explains how 567politics labels contested claims and polls, and our [editorial standards](https://567politics.com/editorial-standards) set out how we handle disputed characterizations such as \"coup.\"","textStyle":"body","layout":"text"}]}