Presidential chancellery ties Nawrocki-Tusk meeting to police at Constitutional Tribunal

Chancellery makes talks conditional on the Tribunal

Zbigniew Bogucki, head of the Chancellery of the President, told Polsat News on Tuesday, 10 November, that he did not know whether Karol Nawrocki and Donald Tusk had spoken during the Silent March in Kraków the day before. He said he believed both leaders attended to stand in silence with residents and Poles, not to discuss politics. The march on Monday, 9 November, honoured people killed in a Saturday, 7 November attack and expressed solidarity with the injured and their families. Asked whether the two men could arrange a meeting, Bogucki said such talks were difficult while police cordons remained on Constitutional Tribunal grounds. He insisted this was not a special condition, and argued that the initiative sat with the government, mainly with Tusk.

What the president said at the security council

Bogucki said the president had stated clearly, at a National Security Council meeting in the week of 2 November, that police had no place inside the Tribunal and that judges should be able to return. Only then, he said, would a good space for dialogue open. Nawrocki told the council that the government's conduct toward the Tribunal raised the most serious charges of illegality. The two leaders had already seen each other at that council, about a week and a half after police forcibly entered the Tribunal. Beata Kempa, a presidential adviser, told TV Republika that the president had raised concerns he hears from Poles he meets, and she said the meeting was possible but the Tribunal question was the key test.

Government response and the invitation

After the council, Tusk said he had proposed a one-on-one conversation with the president to discuss how to lower tension in the country. Bogucki later wrote on social media that he had spoken at the chancellery with the head of the prime minister's chancellery and repeated the president's position: police cordons should leave the Tribunal grounds and lawfully elected judges should be able to enter. He called it a gesture of goodwill from the government side. Speaking in the Sejm, Tusk responded to the stalled contact with a blunt assessment.

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

Appeals for a meeting

Szymon Hołownia, deputy Speaker of the Sejm, said on Monday that he no longer expected the two men to meet, yet he begged for the meeting anyway. He told Polsat News that seeing the president and prime minister sit at a table and talk would show Poles there is a way out for Poland. His appeal came while the dispute over the Tribunal continued to escalate. The sources reviewed do not give a date for any meeting between Nawrocki and Tusk.