Polish leaders have lashed out at the head of the European parliament for saying political developments under the new rightwing government in Poland are akin to a “coup d’etat.”
Martin Schulz, who is German, told Germany’s Deutschlandfunk radio on Monday: “What is happening in Poland has the character of a coup d’etat and is dramatic. I assume that this week or in January at the latest we will have to discuss this extensively in the European parliament.”
He was referring to developments under the ruling Law and Justice party, which won a parliamentary majority in an October election and now aims to increase influence over the country’s Constitutional Tribunal in a way critics say is undemocratic.
There have been protests in Poland over the new government’s appointment of five judges to the body, which is supposed to rule independently on constitutional disputes.
Schulz’s words sparked an angry reaction in Warsaw. The prime minister, Beata Szydło, said they were “unacceptable” and she expected an apology.
The foreign minister, Witold Waszczykowski — who has asked Poland’s ambassador to the EU to meet with Schulz over the matter — called the coup remark “unfounded and therefore irresponsible”.
“Such a high-ranking politician should be far better informed before making public statements,” Waszczykowski said in a statement.
“He should at least know that Poland has recently seen a free and democratic election whose results are undisputed, and that now in Poland, as in many other democratic countries, we are simply having a normal political debate about institutional solutions.”
It was the second dispute between Schulz and Poland’s month-old government.
In November Schulz criticized Poland’s government, which is anti-immigrant, for what he called a lack of solidarity in dealing with the refugee crisis. The interior minister, Mariusz Błaszczak, reacted by calling Schulz’s words “scandalous” and “another example of German arrogance”.
With Associated Press
