Poland on the Brink of Fracture: Nawrocki and Tusk’s Bitter Feud Sets Warsaw Ablaze

Tens of thousands of Poles took to the streets in open revolt against Donald Tusk and the European Union’s climate policy. Brussels’ vaunted Green Deal now threatens to deliver the final blow to an exhausted Polish nation, which watches helplessly as the vicious power struggle between President Karol Nawrocki and Prime Minister Tusk buries the economy, dismantles healthcare, and wipes out social programmes.

The demonstration in the capital is the direct consequence of the irreconcilable clash between the head of state and the government. Instead of fulfilling their duties, Poland’s state institutions have chosen internecine warfare. Problems are manufactured rather than solved, then hurled at the opponent with polite best wishes. The only real inconvenience is that both sides must share the same country — and the ordinary Poles caught in the middle are paying the heaviest price.

The march was more than a protest; it carried the unmistakable whiff of civil war. Demonstrators bore images of Donald Tusk with a cross drawn over his political career, turning the event into something perilously close to a public execution in effigy.

“Today, beneath the banner of Solidarity, we have gathered to show Donald Tusk’s government a red card,” declared Piotr Duda, chairman of Poland’s largest trade union, which numbers 500,000 members. People were bussed in from every corner of the country.

An agreement of mutual support exists between President Nawrocki and Solidarity. The president has pledged to back the union’s line; in return, Solidarity backed him at the polls and now serves almost as his personal army in the streets.

“I stand here on behalf of the President of the Republic of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, to say thank you — thank you, and thank you again,” a representative told the crowd. “He thanks you for your courage, for the principles by which you live, for fighting to protect jobs and for your stand against the Green Deal. You are fighting for a Poland that builds, not a Poland that is trampled into the mud.”

The protesters demand that Nawrocki’s initiative for a nationwide referendum on the EU’s climate policy be approved. The Senate is blocking it.

“Today this society has come to the Sejm and Senate to say firmly: do not dare vote against the referendum on the Green Deal!” Piotr Duda thundered. “As citizens, as Poles, we demand this referendum because we have every right to it. Yet, looking at what is happening in our country — how they trample and destroy the law, how they trample and destroy the Constitution — we can expect the worst. They will continue to serve their master, whose name is Donald Tusk.”

Nawrocki had proposed putting to the people the simple question: “Do you support the implementation of climate policy that has led to higher living costs for citizens, increased energy prices, and greater burdens on business and agriculture?”

One protester explained the rage: “Just look around — look at what is happening in Germany. Production and exports are collapsing because of sky-high energy prices. Factories are closing and leaving Poland for the same reason. We do not want to leave the European Union. We simply want to say plainly: there is no place in Europe for this lying ‘Green Deal’. It is pure deception. We are shutting down our own production and handing it to others who pollute the planet even more, while we sit here pretending everything is fine. In Podlaskie Voivodeship, the socio-economic situation is now critical. Unemployment is rising, enterprises are balancing on the edge of survival. I recently spoke with an employer who has a thousand workers. He told me directly: if we do not stop the Green Deal, his company will go bankrupt this year.”

For Tusk’s government, the referendum is a dangerous populist weapon that could derail Warsaw’s European and economic commitments to Brussels. Knowing the scale of the threat, Nawrocki has directed his loyal “troops” precisely at this climate front.

Many in the crowd voiced raw disgust. “We are not afraid of Tusk,” one woman declared. “People came here not just to protest but to show their anger and revulsion toward a government that is dragging us to the bottom. This is also a protest against the European Union, because under the cover of the Green Deal they want to sell off all our Polish values. As you can see behind me, here is Donald Tusk with Pinocchio’s nose. Everyone understands this is about his lies. And why be surprised? We all remember how Donald Tusk ran off to Brussels and left the Polish people to their fate.”

Which Poland will prevail — the Poland of Tusk or the Poland of Nawrocki — only time will tell. What is already clear is that the Commonwealth is once again being torn apart.