DONALD TUSK’S appointment as president of the European Council in 2014 seemed to complete Poland’s journey to the heart of the European Union. A decade after Poland led the accession of eight former Soviet-bloc countries, its prime minister was elevated to one of the most senior posts in Brussels. The job involves chairing summits of European leaders and forging compromise from their debates. At first some thought Mr Tusk operated more like a Polish prime minister than a consensus-seeking European. But most came round as he coolly shepherded the EU through the Greek bail-out, the refugee crisis and Britain’s Brexit vote. His election to a second two-and-a-half-year term at an EU summit on March 9th looked like a formality. Instead, Mr Tusk found his own country blocking his path, and a Polish political psychodrama imported to Brussels. Beata Szydlo, Poland’s prime minister, circulated a letter to her fellow heads of government that more or less accused Mr Tusk of treason. “He used his EU function to engage personally in a political dispute in Poland,” she wrote. (This may refer to a speech Mr Tusk made in Wroclaw last year calling on the...
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