© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Donald Tusk, the chief of the biggest opposition grouping Civic Coalition (KO), speaks on the assembly with ladies throughout election conference in Lodz, Poland, October 10, 2023. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/File Photograph
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By Alan Charlish
WARSAW (Reuters) – When Donald Tusk visited the EU headquarters in October to speak about unfreezing funds from the bloc when he doubtless returns as Poland’s prime minister, it was a gathering of previous pals for a person who used to assist run the present.
“He had lunch at the canteen for regular workers without any protocol, just like a regular guy,” one former official, who declined to be named, mentioned. “It was like a gathering of friends talking about the good old times.”
Tusk’s supporters say that bonds fashioned throughout his 2014 to 2019 stint as president of the European Council, which teams the leaders of the member nations, are key to unblocking tens of billions of euros in funding withheld beneath the outgoing authorities of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki resulting from issues over the rule of regulation.
The nice and cozy relations with a person who helped corral differing factions over Brexit and Greece’s debt disaster additionally mark a distinction with eight years of bitter battle with Brussels on points starting from migration to LGBT rights beneath Morawiecki’s nationalist Legislation and Justice (PiS) social gathering.
“If someone can take Poland back on a democratic, EU path, it’s Tusk,” one present senior EU official mentioned. “We trust in his leadership.”
President Andrzej Duda gave Morawiecki the primary shot at forming a authorities after the Oct. 15 election.
Nonetheless, it lacks a majority and is anticipated to lose a vote of confidence on Monday.
That will clear the way in which for Tusk, who has vowed to “rebuild the position” of Poland in Europe, to take energy as the pinnacle of a broad alliance of pro-EU events that maintain a majority of seats.
“It’s a sea change for the relations between Poland and the EU because the outgoing government perceived the EU as ‘them’ and Tusk and the incoming government perceives the EU as ‘us’,” the previous official, who labored intently with Tusk, mentioned.
“It’s a fundamental difference … because you approach negotiations in a totally different manner if you know that you are talking to a friend not to enemies.”
CHALLENGES AHEAD
Nonetheless, Tusk’s opponents accuse him of placing international pursuits forward of Poland’s and see him as complicit in makes an attempt by the European Union to infringe on Poland’s sovereignty.
“The European Commission interfered in parliamentary elections in Poland by intentionally blocking the recovery fund to blackmail Poles to support Mr Tusk’s party,” mentioned Sebastian Kaleta, deputy justice minister within the outgoing authorities.
In the meantime, EU officers warn that unblocking the money might not be straightforward because it entails implementing “milestones” on the rule of regulation that could possibly be held up by Duda, a PiS ally.
“When it comes to the recovery fund, the milestones have to be delivered in practice, declarations only will not be enough,” mentioned a second senior EU official.
Working with a president aligned with the opposing camp is a problem for Tusk as he units out to implement an agenda that features rolling again the earlier authorities’s judicial reforms and holding these accused by the opposition of wrongdoing, together with Duda himself, to account.
“In Poland a period of cohabitation is starting,” mentioned Antoni Dudek, a political scientist at Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski College (UKSW) in Warsaw. “Poland’s experience of cohabitation so far is very bad.”
In response to Dudek, the interval from 2007 to 2010 when Tusk served as prime minister alongside the late president Lech Kaczynski, the dual brother of PiS chief Jaroslaw Kaczynski, was “one big conflict”, a scenario which could possibly be repeated.
Nonetheless, colleagues say Tusk’s ardour for politics will assist him discover options.
“I think what drives him is not just being an important person, a prime minister for example, but he feels good in the political game,” mentioned a lawmaker who declined to be named, from Tusk’s Civic Coalition (KO), the biggest grouping within the alliance that’s anticipated to type the following authorities.
EVOLUTION OF IDEAS
In response to the lawmaker this helped Tusk succeed regardless of his opponents’ aggressive election marketing campaign, throughout which state media portrayed him as a German stooge and PiS moved to create a committee investigating undue Russian affect which critics mentioned aimed to remove him from politics.
“He is resistant to unfair games … and he is good at dealing with such things,” the lawmaker mentioned.
Tusk may also want to carry collectively a various coalition whose views on points starting from abortion to public spending differ broadly.
For Janusz Lewandowski, a KO member of the European Parliament who has recognized Tusk because the Nineteen Eighties, the person who began his profession with firmly liberal views has modified throughout his a long time in politics in a approach that permits him to unite completely different factions.
“Tusk underwent an evolution, but he evolved in order to win … which meant less (economic) liberalism, and more social concern,” he mentioned.
Requested how Tusk will deal with the challenges mendacity forward of him, the previous EU official who labored alongside him laughs.
“Having dealt with 28 leaders quarrelling about the Greek debt crisis, the migration crisis, Brexit … I’m pretty sure he can handle it,” the previous official mentioned.
