Donald Tusk has presented his vision of a new, progressive Poland at the heart of the EU, as his government won a vote of confidence in parliament on Tuesday.
“Poland will regain its position as a leader in the European Union,” Tusk told the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, during a speech on Tuesday. He promised to “bring back billions of euros” of EU funds to Poland, which were frozen due to a dispute between Brussels and the outgoing Law and Justice (PiS) government over rule-of-law concerns.
Soon after he spoke, however, the proceedings were plunged into chaos when a far-right MP used a fire extinguisher to put out Hanukkah candles in the parliament, leading the speaker to exclude him from the sitting. Condemning Grzegorz Braun of the far-right Confederation party, Tusk said the incident was “unacceptable” and “a disgrace”.
MPs later voted to back Tusk’s candidacy by 248 to 201, after a broad coalition of opposition parties won a majority in October’s parliamentary election. He will be confirmed as prime minister on Wednesday morning by the president, Andrzej Duda, in time for him to travel to a summit of EU leaders on Thursday and Friday.
The PiS government, in office since 2015, has had a two-month swansong after the vote, prolonged by delaying tactics from the PiS-allied Duda. Although PiS was the largest single party, all others ruled out working with it, meaning it had no route to a majority.
Tusk, a former European Council president, began his speech with a scathing condemnation of the legacy of the PiS years, recalling a furious political tract written by Piotr Szczęsny, a 54-year-old chemist who doused himself in petrol in Warsaw in 2017 and died in hospital 10 days later from the injuries caused by his self-immolation.
Tusk said the “manifesto” Szczęsny wrote before his death, criticising the creeping authoritarianism of the PiS government, could replace his speech, and read out a fragment: “I protest against the xenophobia introduced by the authorities into public debate … I protest against the hostile attitude of the authorities towards immigrants … I protest against the incapacitation of public television.”
His speech was regularly interrupted by shouts from PiS MPs. Mariusz Błaszczak, a PiS MP and former defence minister, called Tusk’s speech a “festival of lies”.
After condemning the outgoing government, Tusk outlined his own programme for Poland. “The time has come for Poland to be happy,” he said.
In campaign appearances, Tusk promised to introduce more rights for LGBTQ+ people, and roll back restrictive abortion legislation introduced under PiS. It remains unclear how much the new government will be able to change abortion laws, given elements of its own coalition do not back significant liberalisation. Duda, who has veto power over the government, remains in office until 2025.
However, Tusk said on Tuesday that a different climate for Polish women would be felt immediately. “We have developed a programme so that every Polish woman feels a change in the treatment of motherhood, protection of mothers and access to legal abortion,” he said.
“From the very first days, we will take concrete actions to ensure that women feel an immediate improvement in terms of their rights. All women will experience an improvement in their lives.”
Tusk announced the formation of a number of new ministerial positions including for equality, for senior citizens and for civil society.
He also suggested his government would seek to ameliorate the situation on Poland’s border with Belarus, where Polish border guards have frequently used violence to push back asylum seekers. Belarusian authorities have orchestrated and exacerbated the crisis but rights groups accuse Polish border guards of using unnecessary force and subjecting people to humiliating treatment.
“You can protect the Polish border and be humane at the same time,” said Tusk.
Tusk, now 66, was prime minister between 2007 and 2014, before leaving for Brussels to become president of the European Council. He returned to Polish politics to lead a campaign against PiS in the election, portraying the vote as the last chance to save democracy in Poland.
The change of government has breathed life into the progressive sector of Polish society. At the end of Tusk’s speech, the new parliament speaker, Szymon Hołownia, thanked the 4 million Poles who watched Monday’s parliamentary session on YouTube.
Also on Tuesday, the European court of human rights ruled Poland had violated the right to respect for a private life by not allowing legal recognition for same-sex couples, putting pressure on the new government to change the law quickly.
“The court considered that the Polish state had failed to comply with its duty to ensure that the applicants had a specific legal framework providing for the recognition and protection of their same-sex unions,” it said in a statement.
One point on which Tusk is unlikely to depart from the position of the previous government is over support for Ukraine. Poland has been one of the staunchest supporters of Ukraine since the full-scale invasion last year, although a disagreement over concessions for Ukrainian truckers has recently escalated into a serious dispute.
Tusk said he would take the economic interests of Polish farmers and truckers, worried about competition from Ukraine, into account. But he also said it was important to remember how much was at stake in Ukraine and back Kyiv to defeat Russia.
“We will loudly and decisively demand the full mobilisation of the free world to help Ukraine in this war ... I can no longer listen to politicians who talk about being tired of the situation in Ukraine. They tell President Zelenskiy that they are tired of the situation. I will demand help for Ukraine from day one,” he said
