Month: May 2026

Germany is facing a staggering migration bill exceeding €40 billion (approximately $43 billion) a year, with critics warning that the true cost of mass immigration is now placing unsustainable pressure on the country’s economy and social systems.

While official figures often highlight federal spending, the full picture is far more alarming. Once regional and municipal costs are included, the total burden rises well beyond €40 billion ($43 billion)—and may approach €50 billion (around $54 billion) annually.

According to a report from Remix News, citing government data and regional reports, the headline federal figure of €24.8 billion ($26.8 billion) significantly understates the real cost borne by taxpayers.

That €24.8 billion ($26.8 billion) represents only federal expenditures. It does not account for the massive additional spending required at the state and local levels.

German states and municipalities are shouldering a large share of the burden. Their combined costs add tens of billions more to the total.

The result is a financial strain that extends across the entire system. Public budgets are being stretched at every level of government.

But the official totals still fail to capture the full impact. Many of the most visible consequences are not included in the headline figures.

Housing markets, for example, are under intense pressure. Rent prices have surged, and affordable housing has become increasingly scarce. Public infrastructure, too, is feeling the strain. Roads are more congested, and local transport systems are facing growing demand.

Healthcare is another major pressure point. Hospitals continue to be overcrowded, and waiting times for treatment are rising.

The financial imbalance within the health system is becoming increasingly evident. The National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds has warned of a growing deficit.

A key issue is the gap between contributions and costs. Many recipients of benefits have not paid into the system at the same level.

Once migrants enter the welfare system, they are integrated into public health insurance. At that point, the financial shortfall becomes clear.

The government contributes approximately €108 (about $117) per person per month. However, actual healthcare costs range between €300 and €350 (roughly $325 to $380). That gap is ultimately covered by taxpayers. As a result, insurance premiums for working Germans are rising.

Housing and social support costs are also increasing. States say federal funding is insufficient to meet actual needs.

Under the current system, the federal government provides €7,500 (about $8,100) per asylum application. This is distributed through VAT revenue adjustments.

But regional authorities argue this amount covers only a fraction of real expenses. The funding gap continues to widen.

Bavaria has been particularly vocal. Officials say their spending far exceeds federal compensation.

Hamburg has also called for increased support. The city argues that current funding levels are unsustainable.

North Rhine-Westphalia , a state in western Germany, provides a clear example of rising costs. The state spent around €667 million (approximately $720 million) on unaccompanied minors in 2025 alone.

That figure has surged dramatically. Costs increased by €320 million (about $345 million) compared to the previous year.

Officials warn that these expenses are unlikely to decrease. The number of arrivals remains high, and demand continues to grow.

The German state of Hesse has reported similar trends. Costs rose to nearly €235 million (roughly $254 million), marking another year of increases.

These figures highlight a broader reality. Migration-related expenses are rising faster than available resources. The economic burden, critics argue, is only part of the story. The broader social impact is also becoming increasingly visible.

Germany’s aging population adds further pressure. Earlier claims that migration would stabilize pensions are now being questioned.

Instead, there are growing discussions about raising the retirement age. Some proposals suggest extending it to 73.

This represents a significant shift, with many Germans being asked to work longer while facing rising costs.

The political consequences are becoming harder to ignore. Migration policy is now at the center of national debate
.
Support is growing for policies that prioritize economic sustainability and national interests. The issue is reshaping the political landscape.

At the same time, critics say the current system is fundamentally misaligned, arguing that it places excessive strain on taxpayers and public services. For them, the €40 billion ($43 billion) figure is a warning sign of a system under increasing pressure.

As costs continue to climb, the debate is intensifying. Policymakers are facing mounting pressure to respond.

Robert Semonsen / thegatewaypundit/

This is not about being racist. This is just about saying, “Don’t I have a right to my language to still exist?”

A revealing little moment in an Atlantic interview with Spanish economist Jesus Fernandez Villaverd. Villaverd’s premise, that the UN is overstating birth rates and that there is an even bigger worldwide decline, is interesting, but gets little meaningful airing, What is interesting is when the economist shows what the impact of mass migration would be on some of the world’s nations.

Japan right now is around 98 percent ethnically Japanese. If we wanted to keep the population of Japan constant in 200 years through immigration, in 200 years Japan will be 5 percent Japanese and 95 percent non-Japanese. This is not about bringing in a few immigrants. This is about changing your country. That country will not be Japan. You may say, “I’m perfectly fine. I’m not attached to the idea of Japan in the abstract.” But I can see a lot of Japanese say, “This is not about being a xenophobe. This is not about being anti-immigrant. This is about not having a country anymore.”

In Spain, in addition to Spanish, we have regional languages like Catalan. The problem is Catalonia is getting a lot of immigrants. The immigrants are not Catalan speakers. Their kids may learn Catalan in school, but they don’t speak Catalan. Given the current level of immigration, Catalan, I have forecast, is doomed as a language. It will not exist. Some people will always speak it in a small village in the mountains, but as a working language of day-to-day life, Catalan is doomed. If you’re a native Catalan speaker, this is existential. So this is not about being anti-immigrant because I’m a nasty guy. This is not about being racist. This is just about saying, “Don’t I have a right to my language to still exist?” I’m an immigrant myself, so it’s not that I’m against immigration. But like everything, it needs to be within a reasonable degree.

Is wanting your country, culture or language to go on existing racist? If so, everyone is a racist.

Jesus Fernandez Villaverd is being reasonably honest about the consequences of mass migration. Most of its proponents aren’t. When Villaverd puts forward more exotic examples, like Catalonia or Japan, it gets a nod, but mention the idea that perhaps eliminating America or England might not be a good thing and you’d get exactly that reaction.

Does French get a right to exist? Does the western canon? Do countries have a right to limit mass migration to preserve themselves without being accused of racism if they want to survive?

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A training exercise involving soldiers from the 17th Parachute Engineer Regiment turned into a dangerous incident on Thursday morning in Montauban (Tarn-et-Garonne). A 24-year-old man, who had been following the soldiers whilst making threats and shouting religious slogans, then stripped naked and entered private property not far from the Jardin des Plantes. Two police officers were injured during his arrest.

[…]
The young man began to follow the group very closely. One hand remained hidden in his bum bag. In broken French, he repeated threats against the soldiers several times before shouting: “Allah akbar” (Allah is great in Arabic).

The situation then escalates completely. In the middle of the street, the man stripped naked and entered the garden of a private property on Impasse d’Angleterre. Alarmed by this intrusion and the threats against the military, local and national police officers quickly converged on the area. The arrest proved difficult from the outset. The man refused to be searched and put up violent resistance. A scuffle with the police ensued.

La Dépêche

Reform UK councillors have called for Birmingham Council to only speak English after an Islamic prayer was read aloud in Arabic at a mayoral ceremony.

Newly-appointed Lord Mayor Zaker Choudhry had invited an imam to deliver a verse from the Koran in Arabic as he was sworn in.

But members of Reform’s 23-man group – the largest at the authority – have said the council must stay “accessible to all” by speaking the national language.

In a letter to Mr Choudhry, councillors acknowledged Birmingham was a “diverse city made up of many different faiths and backgrounds”.

However, they said council meetings must “remain inclusive and accessible to all residents regardless of religion or culture”.

The councillors added that all readings and proceedings should be in English.

They also warned it was “inappropriate” for any readings to be in a language which many residents did not understand.

Group leader Jex Parkin said he “respects the personal faith and beliefs of the Lord Mayor and all communities across Birmingham”.

Mr Parkin continued: “It’s clear only the English language should be used in public meetings in this country.

“We will always advocate for this, on behalf of the residents that elected us to promote and protect the language, culture and values of the United Kingdom.

“We look forward to supporting the Lord Mayor in his new role, and trust this feedback will be accepted with the good faith in which it is offered. Clearly, many residents share our view.”

The letter immediately sparked uproar from Labour, which controlled the council until it was booted out at the May 7 local elections.

Councillor Majid Mahmood said the Reform warning was “nonsense” – then claimed that saying only English should be heard in civic spaces “risks sending a deeply unfortunate message”.

“Birmingham’s diversity is our strength, not something to be feared or politicised,” he said in a letter of support to the Lord Mayor.

Speaking in Arabic at the ceremony, imam Muhammad Abdali quoted a verse of the Koran which he said reminded everyone of how we should “live together in harmony and cooperation, in a spirit of goodness and righteousness”.

Mr Abdali said the reading, which was later repeated in English, encourages love for each other regardless of background, religion or race.

“We should stand together and help each other… and that’s the message of Islam,” he said.

The imam said the prayer was about “standing up against all forms of extremism and terrorism”, while the verse was cited so members would “work together for the good of the city of Birmingham and the wider community”.

This is not the first time a Reform council has moved to promote patriotism.

Reform and Restore Britain councillors at Kent County Council came together with a pledge to recite the Lord’s Prayer and sing the national anthem before its meetings.

While last summer, Reform launched a “patriotic flag pact” with its – at the time – 12 councils, vowing not to remove St George’s Crosses and Union Jacks from lampposts.

The councils said both flags were symbols of unity and inclusion, and have confirmed they would not be taken down.

A Birmingham City Council spokesman said: “It is standard for every Lord Mayor to ask a local religious leader of their choice to do something at the start of the Mayoral year, if they wish.

“In this case, a blessing was performed for the Lord Mayor in his particular faith. Any Lord Mayor of any faith would have an equal opportunity to do the same.”

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NCF Senior Fellow Dr. Philip Kiszely joins Talk TV to discuss some of the day’s top stories.

The next stage of the ongoing political realignment of the United Kingdom out of the century-old status quo may be on the verge of emerging, with reports indicating further Labour Party fracturing if insiders fail to install their preferred prime Minister, Andy Burnham.

A significant number of Labour Members of Parliament could defect leftwards to the considerably more radical Green Party if the present slow-motion coup against party leader and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer fails, it is claimed. While the party’s astonishing defeat in the nationwide local elections earlier this month had been taken by many as the signal that it was time for Starmer to go quietly and shoulder the blame for Labour’s failures, he seems determined to remain in post, and it isn’t even certain a leadership challenge would be able to replace him.

The clear favourite of the party mainstream is Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, a two-time failed leadership candidate who evidently hopes for better luck on the third spin. Confirming speculation that Burnham would likely try to drag the government to the left, The Daily Telegraph reports several Labour MPs are already in talks with the Green Party about jumping ship if they don’t see things going their own way by getting their man in.

The paper states that these alleged defection talks are on ice until the outcome of the leadership race — which hasn’t even officially begun yet, waiting as it is on discovering whether Burnham is even eligible to stand for leader, per party rules — which may come in the Autumn.

While long relegated to the sidelines of British politics and limited to campaigning around environmental issues, observers have noted that the potential of the Green Party as a vehicle for hard-left and ethnic or religiously driven sectarian politics has increasingly become a reality. Competing with a web of so-called ‘Gaza Independent’ candidates vying for votes in the same space, this recent development in British politics threatens to cannibalise Labour’s support base in the migrant communities it has long groomed and, in turn, grown dependent on for support.

As previously reported, Labour has already lost key seats to these Gaza Independents, and it is now known that top Labour figures are privately deeply concerned about the risk to their own jobs and the future of the party in areas where Muslim voters want to support candidates that represent their own interests, rather than be pandered to. This was dramatically revealed during the Peter Mandelson scandal, when private texts between the erstwhile health secretary Wes Streeting and Mandelson became public.

Streeting reflected on a then-recent election result in a Muslim area to a Gaza Independent and wrote to Mandelson: “I fear we’re in big trouble here – and I am toast at the next election… We just lost our safest ward in Redbridge (51% Muslim, Ilford S) to a Gaza independent. At this rate I don’t think we’ll hold either of the two Ilford seats”.

It seems clear that, for at least some Labour Parliamentarians representing ‘diverse’ seats, jumping to the Greens may be the only way to save their jobs.

The Telegraph report notes the Greens stated they were open to defections, and said: “We are more interested in winning elections than defections. However, we know that more and more Labour voters and politicians recognise the Green Party as the most authentic party of the Left… We will always talk with anyone who shares our values.”

If Labour loses Members of Parliament to the Greens en masse, it would mark the second major split within the party over the past decade. Previously led by hard-left firebrand and Palestine obsessive Jeremy Corbyn, one of the first acts of the new leadership upon his ouster was a purge of the party by now-leader Keir Starmer. Corbyn and several of his colleagues went into the wilderness and have since been involved in a variety of temporary parties, but, more than anything, seem to be waiting to see which way the wind blows and whether they will eventually be re-admitted into a post-Starmer Labour Party.

Flight from the party to the Greens would signal that the break on the left between the Middle East-focussed hardliners and the globalist soft left may be permanent. This would mark the latest act in a years-long political realignment of the United Kingdom, which has seen the country go from a two-party system to a multipolar state of flux in less than 20 years. The Conservative Party, which, as often said, is the oldest and most successful political party in world history, has already been eviscerated over its appalling mismanagement of the Brexit issue, allowing Nigel Farage’s UKIP, Brexit Party, and now Reform UK to thrive.

This is a process that remains underway, and it remains uncertain whether the present flux will congeal into a new two-party system where the old certainties of the Tories and Labour are forgotten in favour of new parties less encumbered by old dogmas.

Also possible is a prolonged period of instability, with half a dozen or more small parties competing at election time and none able to form a government alone, as has come to define politics throughout much of the European continent. It is not even certain what the new parties will be at this stage: whether the Greens are the new party of the left or a resting place on the move to another yet unknown destination mirrors developments on the right, where Nigel Farage’s Reform is dominant but already faces a challenge from its own right from Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain.

While Lowe’s faction has proven adept at generating attention online, it is a new one with uncertain support. Just how far it has managed to penetrate, the future of the Labour Party, and the direction of travel for the next couple of years of British politics are all due to be illuminated by the forthcoming by-election (special election) next month.

breitbart

A new poll by Odoxa, commissioned by the parliamentary channel Public Sénat and regional media, may mark a major turning point in the run-up to the French 2027 presidential election. For the first time in several weeks, or even months, the momentum appears to be shifting in favour of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The leader of La France insoumise, long considered a fringe figure in the prevailing scenarios for reaching the second round, has suddenly returned to the centre of the political arena. According to this poll, he is now virtually neck and neck with former prime minister Édouard Philippe in the race for second place, behind Jordan Bardella, the Rassemblement National candidate, who remains well ahead in voting intentions.

This tightening of the race constitutes a significant political development as it calls into question the scenario that had seemed inevitable for months: that of a Bardella-Philippe duel in the second round. Until now, the former prime minister appeared to be the natural candidate of the ‘central bloc’ inherited from Macronism, benefiting from often favourable media coverage and a reputation as a serious administrator. Several previous polls even presented him as the only candidate capable of beating Bardella in the second round. However, this new balance reveals a much deeper fragility in his candidacy.

Édouard Philippe’s decline appears to be linked to several factors. Firstly, his legal troubles are undermining his image of stability and competence. Secondly, his relative political low-profile over the past few weeks gives the impression of a campaign that is still incomplete, even as the presidential race intensifies. Odoxa also highlights a sharp drop in his approval ratings. This decline directly benefits Mélenchon, who, conversely, has enjoyed a surge in visibility since the official announcement of his candidacy.

The rise of the Insoumis leader is all the more notable given that it is taking place against a backdrop of persistent division on the left. For several months, some commentators have argued that the political space on the left was increasingly being occupied by a social-democratic realignment likely to emerge in the wake of Macronism. However, this poll shows that Mélenchon retains considerable electoral clout. By formalising his candidacy very early on, he has regained the strategic initiative and reaffirmed his dominance over the radical and popular left-wing electorate.

This dynamic could have significant consequences for the entire presidential election. Indeed, the various second-round scenarios do not produce the same political balances. Until now, much analysis has been based on the idea that an anti-RN republican front remained capable of holding its ground against Bardella, particularly around a Philippe candidacy. Several recent polls had shown Philippe winning in a direct contest with the RN leader.

Conversely, a Bardella-Mélenchon contest appears to be a much more favourable scenario for the RN. For months, a strong rejection of LFI has taken hold among a section of the public, including moderate and centre-left voters. Several previous surveys showed Bardella winning by a very wide margin against Mélenchon in the second round, sometimes by spectacular margins. This phenomenon reflects the gradual formation of an ‘anti-LFI front’, fuelled by the controversies surrounding the Mélenchonist movement, its confrontational strategy and its strong polarisation.

Thus, paradoxically, Mélenchon’s resurgence could strengthen Bardella’s chances of ultimate victory. The more Mélenchon gains ground in the first round, the more credible the possibility of an extremely polarised second round becomes. And in this scenario, a significant portion of the centrist, moderate or conservative electorate might reject the ‘barrage’ reflex that had hitherto prevented the far right from coming to power.

This poll also reveals a deeper trend: the ongoing erosion of the centrist bloc built around Emmanuel Macron since 2017. After almost ten years of Macronism, the political space of the centre appears increasingly fragile. Édouard Philippe’s difficulties illustrate the limits of a succession based essentially on the idea of continuity. The former prime minister was often presented as the most credible heir to Macronism, but he now struggles to embody an autonomous popular dynamic.

The simultaneous rise of Bardella and Mélenchon suggests, on the contrary, a growing radicalisation of the French political landscape. RN and LFI now appear to be the main beneficiaries of the central government’s waning influence and of the traditional parties’ blatant inconsistency. 

There is obviously still plenty of time before the 2027 presidential election, and polls conducted a year before an election must always be interpreted with caution. Previous French presidential elections have often shown that the political landscape can shift very rapidly in the final months. But this barometer carries strong symbolic significance: it shows that the scenario of a Bardella-Mélenchon run-off, long considered unlikely, is once again politically conceivable.

If this trend were to be confirmed in the coming months, the Left would find itself facing an impossible situation: the return of Mélenchon, which a significant section of the Left is calling for, could paradoxically lead to the RN coming to power.

europeanconservative

Last Friday, a man in Brussels’ Forest Park began masturbating in full view of everyone there, including a group of women, leading to one confrontation with a woman and another more violent attack on a man who reportedly tried to intervene. The police finally arrested the suspect on Sunday at the Place de la Bourse in Brussels.

In the footage posted to social media by Fdesouche, a woman is seen grabbing her water bottle, confronting the suspect, and tossing the contents of her bottle at him. The suspect immediately reacted violently, throwing his shoe at her as she ran away.

Another park-goer, who witnessed the entire scene, told SudInfo: “I saw a guy in the distance staring at me very intently for several minutes — a really prolonged stare,” she said.

Bruxelles : un homme se masturbe publiquement dans le parc de Forest pic.twitter.com/XwvSYzU8sb

— Fdesouche.com est une revue de presse (@F_Desouche) May 23, 2026

Another woman told the portal: “I saw this girl running toward him with a bottle of water and yelling at him: ‘You’re jerking off, I saw you, get lost.’”

According to the witness, the man did not seem “the least bit shaken” afterward. Instead, “He threw his shoe in her face. My friend then stood up to try to defend her because we could feel the tension rising.”

“Not a shred of shame or remorse,” she said, adding that the man even justified his behavior by saying, “She’s half-naked; I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to masturbate.”

This witness also told the portal: “It was 30 degrees and this girl was wearing shorts and a bikini top.” Although this woman is not seen in the video, there is a very narrow field of view on the one video recording obtained from the incident. It is also unclear if the person filming may have been wearing a bikini.

“He threw a right hook straight into my friend’s face with a ring; it split his temple open three centimeters, he was bleeding,” the one witness continued.

The police had been called, but by the time they arrived on the scene, the suspect had already fled. He was finally arrested on Sunday afternoon. Although he appears to possibly be an immigrant in the footage posted, no information pertaining to his nationality has been released by police.

“Our services confirm that a person reported for indecent exposure was spotted on May 24, 2026, at the Place de la Bourse in the early afternoon. The individual was apprehended and taken to the police station for questioning. Following the questioning, he was handed over to the public prosecutor’s office,” said Ilse Van de Keere, spokesperson for the Brussels Capital/Ixelles police zone.

rmx

The centre left won seven of the 18 Italian cities up from grabs in Sunday and Monday’s round of local elections, with Premier Giorgia Meloni’s coalition taking three, civic-independent candidates taking two and six set for run-off votes, the final results showed on Tuesday.
But the centre right took the big prizes, holding Venice and taking Reggio Calabria and Crotone.
In Venice, Simone Venturini beat the Andrea Martella to retain the lagoon city for centre-right after 11 years under Mayor Luigi Brugnaro.The centre right’s Francesco Cannizzaro scored a big win in Reggio Calabria over the centre left’s acting mayor Domenico Battaglia.
The centre left had governed the Calabrian capital since 2014.
Those wins and the victory in Crotone, where a civic list had been in charge, were a big boost for Meloni after the setback of her government’s Constitutional reform of the justice system being rejected a referendum in March.
The premier said the much-heralded collapse of the centre right has been “postponed again”.

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Emergency services have stormed the Gdańsk family home of Polish President Karol Nawrocki on May 23, 2026, after answering two hoax alarm calls — one claiming there was a fire at the property and the other citing a life-threatening medical emergency.

According to the President’s spokesman, Rafał Leśkiewicz, “officers forced the door open and entered the apartment while no one was at home”. There was no one inside and no fire.

Leśkiewicz noted that for several days there had been a series of similar incidents targeting journalists and public figures linked to the right-wing, including over a dozen journalists working for Poland’s most popular news broadcaster TV Republika, and Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of the opposition Law and Justice party (PiS) — the party with which Nawrocki, who won the presidential run-off in June 2025, is aligned.

Kaczyński’s home was raided the previous week after a hoax report of explosives in the PiS leader’s garden. He suggested the ruling coalition could be behind the incidents.

“Whenever the ground starts slipping from under their feet, they resort to the same old tactics: provocations and insinuations aimed at intimidating their political opponents and their families,” he posted on social media. “They’re constantly testing how far they can go.”

Commenting on the incident at the President’s family home, Leśkiewicz complained that “for several days the authorities have been unable to respond appropriately”, adding that though the current targets were public figures, such threats “could affect anyone”.

The State Fire Service reported that it had received text messages on Saturday evening about a fire at the premises as well as reports of a cardiac arrest at the same address.

There appears to have been no contact with the State Protection Service (SOP), which is responsible for the security of the head of state and his family, as well as of government officials. The SOP could have contacted the President’s mother, who actually resides in the property.

The security services have been criticised for failing to identify the culprits behind the hoax calls and allowing emergency services to continue entering properties based on them. The authorities, though, insist that officers are obliged to treat such calls as if they were genuine.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who leads the current centre-left coalition which has repeatedly clashed with the opposition PiS-aligned Nawrocki, held a meeting of the security services at the weekend and expressed solidarity with the President, promising action to apprehend the culprits.

“We will use all available means to identify and apprehend the saboteurs, wherever they are from and whoever is behind them,” Tusk wrote on platform X.

But by Sunday night he was, in a political sense, facing a much bigger fire when citizens of the Polish city of Kraków voted in a referendum to recall the city’s pro-Tusk Mayor**, Aleksander Miszalski. That means the party now faces a tricky election in southern Poland’s second-largest city later in the summer and has to find a candidate capable of holding the seat.

PiS has pointed to the fact that so far the hoax calls leading to actions against victims’ homes have only affected journalists and figures from the Polish right-wing. According to former PiS candidate for Prime Minister Przemysław Czarnek, the incidents bore the mark of a “provocation” and “harassment of the homes of conservative figures”.

Earlier this month, police arrived at the home of Republika’s editor-in-chief Tomasz Sakiewicz after receiving a report about an alleged threat to the life of a minor. During the intervention officers briefly handcuffed Sakiewicz’s assistant, claiming she had refused to identify herself.

Media outlets sympathetic to the Tusk government sought to make light of the incident, with snide remarks about Sakiewicz being in a state of undress at the time.

Police later detained a 53-year-old man in connection with the incident but released him after their investigations suggested he himself had likely fallen victim to “unauthorised use of his personal data and access to the email he uses”.

The spate of hoax calls, whoever the culprit, fits into a pattern of actions against opposition politicians and conservative media in Poland.

Since coming to office in late 2023, the Tusk government has issued a long list of indictments against former PiS officials and politicians, drawing concerns over the rule of law from conservative observers across Europe.

Former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has been indicted for allegedly abusing power in 2020 when he sought to facilitate a postal ballot in the presidential election during the Covid pandemic without legal basis. Money was spent on preparations but the legislative changes could not be made in time and the election was eventually delayed.

Ex-interior minister Mariusz Kamiński and his deputy Maciej Wąsik were apprehended by security forces at the presidential palace, due to a legal wrangle over a presidential pardon for offences they were alleged to have committed during a previous PiS government (2005-2007) involving a sting operation against suspected corruption. They spent days in prison before the then-President issued another pardon which the Tusk government could not ignore.

The government has also indicted former PiS justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro and one of his deputies, Marcin Romanowski, for alleged abuse of power. Both have sought refuge in Hungary and then the US, fearing a long spell in detention without trial.

They are alleged to have conspired with others to siphon off funds from the Justice Fund for “political gain”. The funds reportedly went to conservative media and civil society organisations, the purchase of spyware allegedly used against the liberal opposition of the day, and to fund safety equipment such as fire engines in municipalities where support for PiS and politicians aligned with Ziobro was highest.

Defence lawyers maintain the prosecutors’ case is based on the testimony of one former civil servant who is himself under indictment for other offences. They also stress that neither defendant profited financially, and that money spent was strictly in line with the aims of the fund.

While the European Commission has remained silent on these cases, maintaining they are the business of the member state concerned, the US administration of President Donald Trump has taken a different line. Republican Congressmen and Senators have also written to the EC asking about the Tusk government’s actions with regard to the opposition and the maintenance of the rule of law.

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