Foreign Ministry spokesman Maciej Wewiór denied former president Andrzej Duda’s claims about an alleged note to diplomatic posts concerning the Constitutional Tribunal. On Monday, Radosław Sikorski sharply criticized the president ahead of Tuesday’s National Security Council (RBN) meeting.
The dispute began with comments by the former president on Kanał Zero. Andrzej Duda said that ambassador to China Jakub Kumoch had called him after a conversation with President Karol Nawrocki. According to Duda, Kumoch concluded that a diplomatic note from Poland, which was meant to explain the situation at the Constitutional Tribunal abroad, was untrue, and refused to present it.
Official position of the Foreign Ministry
On Saturday, 31 October, the ministry’s spokesman responded on the platform X. He wrote that the Foreign Ministry had not sent any note about the Tribunal to diplomatic posts and that "such a document does not exist". He also added that "one can look for a way to make a political mark, but there is no need to manufacture fiction".
Wewiór also recalled that Sikorski, "in a gesture of an outstretched hand", had left in their posts the ambassadors whose retention Duda had requested, including Kumoch and Paweł Soloch. In his view, "their cutting off from their political roots in PiS also turned out to be fiction".
Background: ambassadors’ resignations
Kumoch (China) and Soloch (Romania) resigned in connection with the crisis surrounding the Tribunal. Soloch described the events around the Tribunal as an attempt to unlawfully take over the institution, according to Zero.pl. Sikorski had earlier spoken of pressure from the Presidential Palace, as we reported after the resignations of both diplomats. On Friday, Sikorski replied to Kumoch on X that he no longer represented the Republic of Poland. The dispute over the staffing of diplomatic posts has, moreover, been going on for weeks, and the president referred the foreign minister to Prime Minister Tusk.
On Monday, Sikorski said the president had personally urged ambassadors to resign. He added: "That is not the role of the president". As bankier.pl reported, this was his statement from that day. Kumoch had earlier denied the allegations of pressure, according to Zero.pl.
RBN and Grzegorz Braun
The National Security Council meeting convened by Nawrocki will take place on Tuesday, 3 November. The possible attendance of Grzegorz Braun’s associates is causing controversy. Sikorski told journalists that the president "invites whomever he wants", including "Russian stooges". According to WP, he added that the president has no obligation to invite Braun, and that such a decision would be "scandalous". He also assessed that the RBN has lost its gravity and is convened over "trivial matters".
On Sunday, 1 November, Sikorski commented on X about the president’s meeting with Grzegorz Braun and Włodzimierz Skalik of the Confederation of the Polish Crown. He wrote that Braun’s place is not the Presidential Palace but "the paddy wagon". According to press reports from Monday, presidential spokesman Rafał Leśkiewicz responded "change the law", meaning that the RBN’s composition follows from the regulations. One government minister, meanwhile, assessed that the president is aiming at a fight with the coalition.
What’s next
Tuesday’s RBN meeting will show whether representatives of the Confederation of the Polish Crown are among the invitees. Previously, on 11 February, Skalik represented it. The Tribunal dispute continues: KRS chairman Dariusz Zawistowski called for allowing all judges elected by the Sejm to adjudicate, and Constitutional Tribunal judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska refused to allow anyone onto the Tribunal’s premises and proposed a meeting with the president at the Palace. As of publication, the Foreign Ministry has not presented a document that could settle what Kumoch actually received.
