Jarosław Kaczyński

Poland's government said Saturday that it has decided to temporarily prohibit grain and other food imports from Ukraine as it seeks to soothe the rising anger of Polish farmers, who say they are losing huge amounts of money to a glut of Ukrainian grain on the market.

So far, Ziobro has opposed any compromise with Brussels, but the new scenario discussed this week is that his party would submit amendments to a presidential draft law to dismantle the Chamber, which PiS would later accept.

Tusk's announcement is important because it means the liberal opposition has received support from maverick politician Pawel Kukiz, whose four MPs are currently key to PiS maintaining its parliamentary majority. To support the opposition request, Kukiz has asked for the commission to have a broader remit, investigating surveillance under several governments, including Civic Platform ones.

Gowin, go lose

On the eve of the adoption of the most controversial act of the current Sejm (elected in 2019 for the term until 2023), Poland's three-party coalition broke apart.

Supporters and members of opposition parties take part in a protest against the amendment to the Broadcasting Act in front of the Polish parliament building in Warsaw, Poland, 11 August 2021. EPA-EFE/Piotr Nowak

Leader of the Polish Law and Justice (PiS) party Jaroslaw Kaczynski attends a press conference at the Polish parliament building in Warsaw, Poland, 07 July 2021. EPA-EFE/PAWEL SUPERNAK Family ties

Given interwar Poland is a model that PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski often refers to when he speaks about his party's purported restoration of the nation's pride after decades of Nazism, communism and liberalism, this historical fact might give him some pause for thought.

Poland's ruling Law and Justice, PiS party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Croatian public broadcaster HRT were given 'awards' on Friday in the first European SLAPP Contest, a parody initiative intended to highlight the use of strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, to intimidate and deter journalists and rights campaigners.

In May, PiS has attempted to repeat the same trick with a package of measures dubbed the "Polish Deal" (initially the "New Deal"), the most prominent of which are changes to the tax system aimed at benefitting the neediest in society.

Ziobro argued that the measures to allow the EU to generate "own resources" for the plan (ie. issue debt) would lead to a further - unacceptable, in his view - erosion of national sovereignty. Also, as the architect of the PiS's controversial justice reforms, he did not like the rule-of-law conditionality that the European Commission has attached to the disbursement of funds from the RRF.