Donald Tusk

Expectations for Poland's pro-EU government which is due to take power next week are sky-high but current ruling nationalists will still be a powerful and influential opposition, analysts say.

Independent website onet.pl used aerial images to calculate that at least 300,000 took to the streets. The centre of Warsaw was completely paralysed and protesters had to walk across the city to get to the meeting place on Sunday at noon.

Polish President Andrzej Duda arrives at the Opening Session of the 4th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Council of Europe at the Harpa Conference Center in Reykjavik, Iceland, 16 May 2023. EPA-EFE/Leszek Szymanski

In other news, Donald Tusk, leader of Poland's main opposition Civic Platform party, is put under investigation by Warsaw prosecutors for abuse of power; the new Czech president is already at odds with the government; and former Slovak PM Robert Fico says 'yes' to Ukraine in the EU, 'no' to it joining NATO.

Yet even if it wanted to cut a deal with the EU, PiS is caught between a rock and hard place with its junior coalition partner, the party of Zbigniew Ziobro. The hardline justice minister won't agree to any compromises with Brussels, but dropping him from the coalition would result in a minority government, which is definitely not an ideal situation in an election year.

More than 100,000 people demonstrated in Poland today in support of the country's membership in the European Union, Reuters reported.

This came after the Polish Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday that parts of European law were incompatible with the national constitution - something that raised fears that Poland might leave the bloc.

The centre-right European People's Party (EPP), the largest political group in the European Parliament, sounded the alarm on Thursday (7 October), warning that Poland's ruling party is pushing the country towards 'Polexit'.

AGERPRES special correspondent Florentina Peia reports: President Klaus Iohannis presented today EPP President Donald Tusk with the National Order of the Star of Romania in the rank of Grand Cross, in a ceremony organized at Romania's Permanent Representation to the EU. "Last year I signed the decree conferring Mr.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, his Norwegian counterpart Erna Solberg and 11 other national leaders of the conservative European People's Party have written to the EPP's president, Donald Tusk, calling for the ejection from the group of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz party due to authoritarian tactics.

Tusk himself ups the ante in the introduction to the book, published (in Polish) at the end of last year by media giant Agora.

"When I told Herman Van Rompuy, the former prime minister of Belgium and my predecessor, that I am sending my notes from the last years to a publisher, he scratched his head: 'Why are you doing that? It's very risky, you will regret it.'"