Zbigniew Bogucki, the Polish opposition Conservatives (PiS) politician who was nominated to be chief of staff for president-elect Karol Nowrocki, said the president-elect on taking office may decide to attend European Union summits.
Nawrocki was the opposition PiS winner of the recent elections.
It has been the tradition in Poland that it is the prime minister who attends EU summits and the president who represents Poland at NATO summits. Prime Minister Donald Tusk leads the centre-left coalition that lost the presidential election.
Despite the tradition, during the relationship between the PiS-allied Lech Kaczyński (2007-2010) there was conflict between the president and the then-PM Tusk in 2008, fighting over who should attend EU summits. Both ended up being at them amid an unseemly fight about the government denying the then-president access to the administration’s plane in travelling to these events.
The relationship between the outgoing PiS-allied President Andrzej Duda and Tusk has been stormy but so far Duda has not attempted to attend EU summits.
That looks about to change. Nawrocki said he believed his mandate was “fresher” than the Tusk government’s and therefore did not rule out that he would attend EU summits together with a representative of the government, potentially Tusk himself.
“We’ll see how this co-operation will unfold between the head of state and the government. It will likely be a very difficult partnership,” said Bogucki during an interview with the government controlled Polskie Radio Jedynka on July 22.
When asked whether the new president intended to actively participate in negotiations in Brussels, Bogucki confirmed that this was the case.
“That’s one of the roles of the president. I would remind you that the presidential mandate is arguably the strongest, since it comes directly from the people. President-elect Karol Nawrocki’s mandate is the most recent,” he said.
“I can’t imagine Poland’s international positions being decided without consultation with the President. That’s also what the Constitution requires.”
But Bogucki admitted that a constitutional court ruling of 2009 did signal that the government was primarily responsible for dealing with EU business.
“Of course, the government has a certain priority in these matters but I must stress that the most recent and most powerful mandate, granted directly by the people, belongs to the president-elect. The law clearly requires cooperation between these two branches of government,” he added.
Nawrocki’s win has been contested first of all by claims of irregularities in the counting of the votes and then by arguments that the chamber of the Supreme Court that was responsible for the validation of the result had no right to do so since its existence has been challenged by European Court of Justice rulings.
But the Speaker of Parliament, Szymon Hołownia, has rejected any notion that he would postpone Nawrocki’s inauguration due on August 6 when the second and final term of the Duda presidency ends.
