It is a chapter which is closing in the history of post-1989 Poland, breaking with eight years of national populism and “illiberal” excesses. And another which is opening up for the country, which promises to be a pioneer in a Europe prey to political extremes: how to restore an undermined democracy, all in an atmosphere of deep polarization? Desire for impartial public media, depoliticization of the judicial system, renewed dialogue with the European Union (EU)… The projects ahead are colossal.
On Monday, December 11, the Polish Diet elected centrist-liberal Donald Tusk as prime minister, earlier disavowing, in a vote of confidence, the government of Mateusz Morawiecki. An unsurprising snub against the outgoing power of the Law and Justice party (PiS), defeated at the end of the legislative election of October 15, while a coalition of pro-European forces won 248 of the 460 seats.
“This is a great day for all those who, for many years, believed that things would get better, that we would chase away the darkness,” declared Donald Tusk, after a stormy parliamentary assembly. Then, Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of PiS, going to the podium, called the elected prime minister “a German agent”, a common invective for him. Thus ends the reign of the national-conservative party, ruling the country since 2015, mirroring the harsh rhetoric of its last two principals. The transfer of power, two months after the elections, was delayed as much as possible by the outgoing PiS.
An old hand in Polish politics, Donald Tusk, 66, is returning to the executive after having left it, from 2014 to 2019, to chair the European Council. One of his government’s announced priorities will be the reestablishment of the rule of law. In eight years, the PiS has undertaken real work to undermine democratic counter-powers. The Constitutional Court was brought to heel with constitutional violations, as soon as it came to power, as were several ordinary courts. The National Council of the Judiciary, responsible for appointing judges, was also cut short, just like the Supreme Court. The magistrates who raised their voice to preserve their independence were, for their part, sidelined. The European Court of Justice has ruled on numerous occasions against these violations of the independence of the judiciary.
Coming from civil society, various bills aimed at countering these maneuvers deemed authoritarian are already on the table of the elected government. What to do with the hundreds of political appointments made since 2015? Is there a risk, in seeking to regain judicial independence, of falling into revenge, like the purges which were the hallmark of PiS? The debate is already agitating a number of Polish jurists.
Limited margin
However, the rapid restoration of democratic standards, as Donald Tusk wishes, risks clashing with Polish political reality. The Democratic coalition’s room for maneuver remains limited. In question, Andrzej Duda, from the PiS, who still occupies the presidency, at least until the next election in spring 2025. Cohabitation could turn out to be chaotic: holder of a presidential veto, will choose- to obstruct legislative initiatives, when Duda himself was the architect of the dismantling of the independence of the judiciary?
Donald Tusk nevertheless announced it, hammered home over the last few weeks: anyone who broke the law during the reign of PiS “will have to answer for it”. At the end of November, even as PiS was playing for time to cling to power, the Diet voted to create parliamentary commissions of inquiry into a series of scandals that have punctuated eight years of PiS. Starting with the tapping of opposition figures and judges using the Pegasus software, revealed in 2021. The broadcast of the latest parliamentary sessions is breaking audience records, testifying both to the renewed interest and relief shared by public opinion, that of the anti-PiS.
In recent weeks, Jarosław Kaczyński’s party has cemented its base within state institutions until the last minute, some of which come under public funds. All-out appointments, massive last-minute spending, alleged destruction of compromising documents… On December 6, the appointment of 76 judges from the highly contested National Council of the Judiciary was confirmed. A way, according to some observers, of hindering the work of Donald Tusk’s democratic coalition, and of setting up a sort of “fifth column”, says Donald Tusk.
The other challenge for the next executive will be to assess the state of the accounts, after two mandates of opacity in public spending. “The authorities will be faced with a dilemma,” says Anna Pacześniak, political scientist at the University of Wrocław: either choose a certain budgetary rigor, at the risk of affecting the Poles, or “simply correct the policies of his predecessors” while assuming the resulting costs. “It seems that they are more inclined to opt for the latter solution, because the new government cannot afford to be immediately associated with the deterioration of the household situation. Hence the idea of increasing teachers’ salaries by 30%, for example. »
The parliamentary majority will also have to do battle with public broadcasting, which has become a real organ of PiS propaganda. Behind the scenes, according to the daily Rzeczpospolita, public television and radio — Telewizja Polska and Polskie Radio — could be liquidated first, before a new public service is formed, under another name, and this time with a guarantee of journalistic respectability.
The right to abortion, a thorny issue
The right to abortion, considerably restricted under PiS, will however feature among the thorny issues of the coalition, ranging from the center right to the left. Even if it means causing dissension between the three political blocs that make it up. If all partners wish to invalidate the judgment of the Constitutional Court of 2020 – ruling that abortion due to malformation of the fetus is contrary to the fundamental law – the left and the centrist Civic Coalition want to go even further, by liberalizing the right to abortion until the twelfth week of pregnancy. However, the conservative deputies of the Third Way, an agrarian and Christian Democratic faction, say they want to resolve this subject through a referendum, without going through Parliament.
At the level of the European Union (EU), Donald Tusk aspires to renew dialogue with the European Commission, after two mandates of execrable relations between Warsaw and Brussels. One of the projects will also be to release the 35 billion euros from the post-COVID recovery plan and the approximately 76 billion in cohesion funds, not paid due to attacks on the rule of law.
The presentation of the Council of Ministers, the outlines of which have already been outlined, will take place on Tuesday, while the swearing-in will take place the next day, in all likelihood. That is, just before the European summit on Thursday and Friday in Brussels, which will focus in particular on the opening of negotiations for Ukraine’s accession to the EU.