Polish media outlets supportive of Poland’s national-conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party have published a recording of a private phone call involving Prime Minister Donald Tusk when he was president of the European Council.

They say it shows how he was continuing to interfere in Polish politics – and speaking in a dismissive and vulgar way about certain parts of Poland – while holding his supposedly neutral EU position.

But commentators and legal experts, as well as figures from Poland’s current ruling camp, say that the conversation reveals nothing of interest and that the real issue is how it was recorded and came to light. They believe it was produced as part of illegal surveillance conducted under PiS using Pegasus spyware.

On Friday and Saturday, right-wing broadcasters wPolsce24 and Republika released audio from two phone conversations involving Roman Giertych, who is currently an MP elected on the list of Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition (KO). One was with Paweł Graś, Tusk’s current chief of staff, and the other with Tusk himself.

Though the recordings are undated, their content makes clear that they were made in the lead-up to the October 2019 Polish parliamentary elections, when KO was in opposition and Tusk was head of the European Council.

During the majority of his conversation with Tusk, which lasts around 16 minutes, Giertych – who at the time worked as a lawyer, including for Tusk and his children – was complaining about the then-leader of KO, Grzegorz Schetyna.

Giertych expressed frustration that Schetyna was blocking his attempts to become an election candidate for KO, saying that Schetyna was trying to suggest that Giertych stand in districts where he would have little chance of winning.

Here, Giertych described the places being suggested by Schetyna (eastern Wielkopolska province and the city of Radom) as “shits” (using the English word), at which point Tusk expressed agreement that they were places “where the fuck-ups are” (“gdzie zjeby są”).

When publishing the material, Republika noted that, at the time, “Tusk was the president of the European Council and, according to EU law, he should not interfere in domestic political disputes. And yet the tapes show something completely different”.

In response to the release of the recordings, Giertych issued a statement in which he said that they were made “as part of an illegal operation conducted against me by the CBA [Central Anticorruption Bureau]” using Pegasus spyware purchased by the PiS government.

PiS has been accused of illegally buying Pegasus and then using it to spy on opponents of its government, including Giertych and Krzysztof Brejza, who was the head of KO’s election campaign in 2019. Extracts of recordings made using Pegasus were then leaked to PiS-friendly media.

“Recording conversations between a lawyer and his clients, not destroying them, taking copies of the conversations from the CBA, passing them on to the media and publishing these conversations are very serious crimes,” wrote Giertych. “Those guilty of all these crimes will be punished.”

Legally, the CBA is supposed to destroy surveillance recordings that do not contain evidence of any crime. Giertych has not been charged with any crime in relation to the content of the recordings.

Przemysław Rosati, the president of Poland’s Supreme Bar Council, says that the newly released recordings “confirm that Pegasus was used for surveillance without a legal basis and unrelated to state security”.

“Monitoring a lawyer’s telephone is an action that directly violates attorney-client privilege and…is simply an abuse of power,” he added.

Foreign minister Radosław Sikorski also commented on social media, writing that he “hopes the media will not get excited about tidbits [contained in the recordings] but will help identify the criminals who recorded and distributed conversations between a lawyer and client”.

Tusk himself has not yet commented on the recordings.

Since replacing PiS in power in December 2023, Tusk’s ruling coalition has launched a number of investigations into the use of Pegasus by the former government.

Last year, prosecutor general Adam Bodnar revealed that almost 600 people in Poland were targeted for surveillance with Pegasus between 2017 and 2022. The interior minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, said that this had included “too many cases” when it was used “against inconvenient politicians, lawyers, judges and prosecutors”.

Subsequently, a former PiS deputy justice minister, Michał Woś was charged with abusing his powers for the alleged illegal transfer of justice ministry funds to finance the purchase of Pegasus in 2017. He denies the allegations.

In February this year, the head of the CBA, Agnieszka Kwiatkowska-Gurdak, resigned from her position after refusing to answer questions during an appearance before a parliamentary commission investigating the use of Pegasus spyware.

Thing is the TK is not an institution supported by the current government. Its judges were illegally appointed by PiS (the previous government) and now only serve to politically posture.

Right, and keep the opinions (at least mostly) consistent so as to build long-term trust.

But how do we convince people to the left then?

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has announced his support for conservative opposition Polish presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki ahead of Sunday’s run-off election, in which Nawrocki is competing against government-aligned centrist Rafał Trzaskowski.

His endorsement comes two days after Donald Trump’s homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, also called on Poles to vote for Nawrocki and described Trzaskowski as “an absolute train wreck of a leader”.

Noem’s declaration of support came during CPAC Poland, the first time that the prominent US conservative conference has been held in the country. Orbán’s remarks came today at the Hungarian offshoot of CPAC.

“On Sunday, presidential elections will be held in Poland,” said Orbán, quoted by Polsat News. “Long live Nawrocki!”

The Hungarian leader then pointed to Mateusz Morawiecki, Poland’s former conservative prime minister, and said: “If you want to know what true liberal democracy looks like, ask him. Unheard-of things are happening in Poland. All European rules and principles are being trampled. And Brussels supports it.”

Morawiecki and his national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party have accused Poland’s current government, led by former European Council President Donald Tusk, of violating democracy and the rule of law.

Elsewhere in his speech, Orbán announced a “patriotic plan” to “transform” the European Union. “We want to take Europe back from migrants. We want a Christian culture, schools based on national principles,” he declared.

Orbán’s Fidesz party has long been closely aligned with PiS, which ruled Poland from 2015 to 2023 but is now in opposition. Though Nawrocki is technically an independent, PiS is supporting his presidential bid.

PiS’s relationship with Orbán has, however, faced some criticism in Poland, in particular due to the Hungarian leader’s close relationship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. That led relations between PiS and Fidesz to cool after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, though they have subsequently warmed again.

After Orbán’s endorsement of Nawrocki today, a number of figures from Poland’s ruling coalition, which contains pro-EU parties ranging from left to centre-right, posted pictures on social media of Orbán and Putin together.

“Congratulations on the support from Prime Minister Viktor Orban,” foreign minister Radosław Sikorski wrote to Nawrocki, before asking: “Will you pursue a similar policy towards Putin and the European Union?”

Last week, Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland accused Nawrocki of “playing into Russia’s hands” by declaring his opposition to Ukrainian membership of NATO.

Nawrocki has also called for measures to ensure that Poles receive preferential access to public services ahead of immigrants, the majority of whom are Ukrainians.

Polls suggest that Sunday’s presidential election run-off will be an extremely tight race between Trzaskowski and Nawrocki. The winner will succeed current President Duda when his second and final five-year term in office ends in August.

Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, has promised a “zero tolerance, ruthless” approach to hooliganism at tonight’s UEFA Conference League football final between Chelsea and Real Betis in the Polish city of Wrocław, following clashes between British and Spanish fans.

Yesterday evening, at around 7:30 p.m., groups of rival fans began throwing chairs and bottles at one another outside bars on one of Wrocław’s historic market squares.

“The English fans didn’t like the fact that the Spanish fans were sitting in an Irish pub, which means they sympathise with the Irish,” Tomasz Sikora, a spokesman for Wrocław city hall, told Polsat News. “That’s where the whole issue came from.”

“The police reacted immediately, which prevented further escalation of the conflict,” added Łukasz Dutkowiak, a spokesman for the local police. “The fans scattered in different directions and activities aimed at identifying them are still ongoing.”

Another clash then broke out around 11 p.m. involving around ten people. “A 31-year-old Spanish citizen, who was the most aggressive [among them], was detained,” while other participants ran away, said Dutkowiak, quoted by broadcaster TVN.

Separately, three other people from Spain were arrested for dismantling Conference League final flags. Sikora said that, in total, police made 515 interventions on Tuesday, the kind of level normally seen on New Year’s Eve.

Monika Kaleta, a spokeswoman for local police, told Eurosport that they are “expecting a possible escalation of clashes” today around the final, which begins at 9 p.m. local time in Wrocław’s 43,000-capacity Tarczyński Arena.

Around 2,000 police officers have been deployed to the city for the final, including many drafted in from other parts of Poland. Local newspaper Gazeta Wrocławska, however, notes that most of the thousands of fans who have come to Wrocław for the match are behaving peacefully.

In a statement issued on social media on Wednesday afternoon, Tusk “thanked the police for their decisive actions against the hooligans in Chelsea and Betis shirts in Wrocław”.

“Zero tolerance for violence on our streets!” he added. “We warn you: if necessary, the police will be even more ruthless today!”