Prime Minister Donald Tusk and President Karol Nawrocki did not hold an extended conversation in Kraków on Monday, government spokesman Adam Szłapka said Tuesday. He added that the government is “now waiting for a signal from the president” regarding a meeting, and that no such conversation is currently planned.
On Monday in Kraków, the president and the prime minister took part in a Silent March through the city’s streets to commemorate those killed in Saturday’s attack and to express solidarity with the victims, the injured and their loved ones.
The government spokesman was asked Tuesday on TOK FM radio whether the president and the prime minister had spoken during the Kraków visit.
“Yesterday, of course, both men took part together in these ceremonies, including the march, but there was no longer conversation,” Szłapka said.
He added that there was “no opportunity” for a one-on-one conversation, but that “nothing prevents such a conversation from taking place, of course.”
Asked whether a conversation could still happen this week, the government spokesman said they are “now waiting for a signal from the president,” and that for now “such a conversation is not planned.”
The government spokesman recalled that the prime minister proposed a conversation directly after the National Security Council (RBN) meeting held on Nov. 3. Szłapka added that in order to talk about “the most important matters, it’s hard to set preconditions.”
After last week’s RBN meeting, the prime minister said he had offered the president a one-on-one meeting to consider how to lastingly reduce tensions in the country. During the public part of the RBN meeting, the president said that the situation at the Constitutional Tribunal had caused a serious constitutional crisis.
On Nov. 6, Zbigniew Bogucki, head of the Chancellery of the President, wrote on X that he had talked about a president–prime minister meeting with Jan Grabiec, head of the KPRP, and that he had presented “the position of the President of Poland, presented during the RBN: police cordons leave the grounds of the Constitutional Tribunal, legal judges enter the Tribunal.” The same day, Grabiec said that Bogucki “spoke about some preconditions that should be met,” and that this is not the right approach, because “the president of Poland and the prime minister should be able to talk without setting preconditions.”
Szłapka was also asked Tuesday whether the prime minister would be willing to support an idea put forward by Deputy Prime Minister, Polish People’s Party (PSL) leader and Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz to amend the Polish Constitution and carry out a “constitutional reset” regarding the Constitutional Tribunal. The proposal presented last week called, among other things, for ending the terms of the current judges and having new ones chosen by the National Assembly, the joint session of both houses of parliament.
“The starting point is that there are legally elected judges of the Constitutional Tribunal who have begun work (…) and the Tribunal is starting to function normally,” Szłapka said. As for talks on the PSL idea itself, he replied that “one can talk about it,” but not in a way that would “in any way call into question the situation we are dealing with now.”
“In accordance with the constitution, judges were elected, they are judges, and that is a fact. That is what the law in Poland says, and I think that is all on this subject,” the government spokesman said. (PAP)
