EU parliament president faces ‘TUSK=DICTATOR’ MPs in Poland (VIDEOS)

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola was greeted by an unusual spectacle in the Polish parliament on Friday, as opposition lawmakers unfurled a large ‘TUSK=DICTATOR’ banner and accused Prime Minister Donald Tusk of orchestrating a coup against the country’s judiciary.

The protest erupted shortly after Metsola began addressing the Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament, during an official visit to Warsaw. MPs from the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party displayed photographs of riot police outside the Constitutional Tribunal and held up yellow placards warning in English that a “coup d’état” is underway in Poland, instigated by Tusk.

The stunt was intended to draw international attention to a bitter constitutional crisis that has pitted Tusk’s pro-EU ruling coalition against Euroskeptic President Karol Nawrocki and his conservative allies.

Metsola, who highlighted Poland’s importance to the EU and declared that a threat to Polish security is a threat to Europe as a whole, largely avoided engaging with the demonstrators. Asked about the protest, she described it as an expression of democracy.

“Brussels sees crimes where there are none, and is blind to obvious violations of the law,” PiS lawmaker Marcin Warchol wrote on social media, accusing EU officials of prioritizing political interests over the rule of law.

He claimed that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is embracing Tusk and Metsola is pretending to be “blind and deaf” to the takeover of the Constitutional Tribunal.

Fellow PiS MP Marek Wesoły accused Metsola of ignoring the crisis. “We reminded her who Donald Tusk is!” he wrote.

Tusk appeared to be amused by the spectacle, posting a photograph of himself with the opposition banner in the background.

“They’ll start singing and selling watches in a moment,” he said, apparently referring to previous protests outside the Constitutional Tribunal, in which PiS lawmaker Michal Wojcik sang a popular Polish song and a conservative TV outlet promoted commemorative watches.

Tusk later told reporters that he was moved by Metsola’s address, adding that the “scenery was also very interesting.”

READ MORE: A coup in Poland? Here’s what the power struggle is really about

The parliamentary showdown follows dramatic scenes in Warsaw last week, when riot police surrounded the Constitutional Tribunal amid attempts by government-backed judges to suspend its president, Bogdan Swieczkowski, and vice president, Bartlomiej Sochanski.

Nawrocki, who had been visiting Africa, cut his trip short and returned to Warsaw, accusing Tusk’s government of forcibly seizing a constitutional institution and violating the country’s constitutional order.

The confrontation has deepened Poland’s longstanding institutional deadlock. Tusk’s governing coalition maintains that it is restoring judicial independence after years of alleged political interference under PiS; the opposition accuses him of dismantling constitutional safeguards to consolidate power.