Clash intensifies between Tusk and Nawrocki over Poland’s top court

WARSAW — Poland’s political crisis deepened on Tuesday as nationalist President Karol Nawrocki launched a bitter attack on pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk amid a furor over the politicization of judges at the country’s Constitutional Tribunal. In increasingly heated exchanges, Nawrocki accused Tusk of using the court dispute for an illegal power grab, while Tusk defended his actions as vital to preserving the rule of law in the EU’s sixth-largest economy. The long-running but highly charged judicial dispute dates back more than a decade and centers on the political appointment of judges at the top court by the previous administration of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party that was in power until 2023.