Donald Tusk is attempting to restore legitimacy to the country’s constitutional court. In a polarised country and continent, that carries political risks

The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, must occasionally look towards Budapest and sigh. A landslide victory in elections last spring enabled Hungary’s new prime minister, Péter Magyar, to act with ruthless determination to clean up the country’s politics after 16 years of corrupt Orbánisation. Mr Tusk, whose centrist coalition ousted the far-right Law and Justice party (PiS) in 2023, is similarly taking on the legacy of a government which undermined the rule of law and democratic norms. But his efforts have been relentlessly boxed in by the blocking tactics of Poland’s (PiS)‑backed president, Karol Nawrocki.

At the weekend, this standoff escalated into a crisis with wider implications for the European Union as well as Poland itself. Exasperated by Mr Nawrocki’s attempts to veto the appointment of new judges to the country’s constitutional court – which has been illegitimately dominated since 2015 by PiS‑friendly appointees – Mr Tusk backed the enforced appointment of a new head, and the suspension of the court’s president and vice‑president. Extraordinary scenes followed, as rightwing demonstrators massed outside the court building in the early hours of Saturday morning and Mr Nawrocki pushed past security forces to protest.

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From 1945 to 1989 security police relied on tens of thousands of spies to suppress dissent. To rebuild trust, their files will finally be made public

Hungary’s new government will on Wednesday reveal the names of tens of thousands of state informants from the communist era in an attempt to confront the past and rebuild public trust.

From 1945 to 1989, Hungary’s communist state-security services relied on an extensive network of informants to monitor society and suppress dissent. Some were blackmailed or coerced into reporting on neighbours, friends, colleagues and even family members; others were recruited through promises of various advantages.