Poland Risks Being the EU’s Rogue State
People hold up a Polish and EU flag and copies of the Constitution as they gather in front of the presidential palace in Warsaw under the slogan "Free courts, free elections, free Poland."
Photographer: JANEK SKARZYNSKI/AFPBehind the noise of Brexit negotiations, the talk in the European Union this year has been that there’s potentially a bigger problem in the east. And the prospect of another rupture looks to be increasing.
Poland’s de facto leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, hand-picked his second prime minister in two years, opting last week for western-educated Finance Minister Mateusz Morawiecki as he seeks to boost the economy after revamping the judicial system. He is another Kaczynski acolyte who has backed the increasingly authoritarian Law & Justice party’s push to seize more control of the courts, a plan condemned by the European Parliament and European Commission.