Bogucki sets conditions for Tusk-Nawrocki meeting: police to leave Constitutional Tribunal

Conditions from the Chancellery

On Friday, 6 November, Zbigniew Bogucki, head of the Chancellery of the President (KPRP), said he had spoken that day with Jan Grabiec, head of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister (KPRM), about a possible meeting between President Karol Nawrocki and Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Grabiec visited the presidential chancellery for the talk. Bogucki repeated the president's position from the National Security Council (RBN): police cordons should leave the Constitutional Tribunal (TK) building and lawful judges should be allowed in. He posted this on X and closed with a request to the government:

“Let this be a sign of good will from the government side.”

Tensions around the Tribunal had escalated overnight from Friday, 30 October to Saturday, 31 October, and the conditions came one week after that escalation. At the RBN meeting, Nawrocki said that the most serious charges concerning the illegality of the government's actions towards the TK were justified.

Tusk's offer and the wait for a text message

Tusk made his offer after the RBN meeting on Tuesday, 3 November. At the press conference that followed, he said a simple consensus would be hard to reach, and that the aim was not for one side to triumph or humiliate the other. He said he was ready to meet the president in private that week to consider how to lower the tension for good. Any such talk, he indicated, would take place without the media. Tusk said the two had agreed to a meeting, but that the president would be the one to send a text message proposing a place and date. On Thursday, 5 November, asked in the Sejm whether the meeting would happen that week, Tusk said he hoped so and added that he was waiting for the president's message.

Friday remarks and Grabiec's reply

On Friday, 6 November, Tusk spoke to reporters in the Sejm after Bogucki's post. Asked whether the meeting would now not take place, he said he had a theory about why the president was wary of it, but would say nothing more. He described the president's stance in these words:

“The president for some reason preferred to withdraw from the invitation for now, but this is certainly not the last attempt, and we will probably meet in the future.”

Jan Grabiec answered on X the same day with a statement that set the terms of the exchange:

“On matters important for Poland, the president and prime minister should be able to talk without setting conditions. This is what the reason of state requires.”

What happens next

Bogucki had said on Wednesday, 4 November, that details of organising the meeting would be presented after Nawrocki returned from Slovakia, where the Visegrad Group leaders' summit was held on 4 and 5 November. The Friday talk between the two chancellery heads was meant as the next step in those preparations. No place or date for a meeting has been announced in these reports. Tusk is waiting for the president's text message, while the chancellery's post ties the atmosphere and terms of any meeting to government concessions in the TK dispute. Whether the proposal is sent, and whether the conditions are accepted, will decide if the meeting goes ahead.