As Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk prepares to take over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union on January 1, he has signalled he will contest numerous initiatives proposed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Many have proved unpopular with Polish voters: Among them the EU-Mercosur plan, the EU Green Deal, plans for treaty change and an agreement with Ukraine over grain imports.
With Poland facing presidential elections in May 2025, the six-month Council presidency will mark something of a tightrope walk for Tusk.
A December 17-18 IPSOS poll found Tusk’s Civil Coalition (KO) party led the opposition Conservatives PiS by only 8 percentage points in a second-round contest.
Tusk, who bragged in December 2023 that “no one can outplay me in the EU”, has put great stock in his ability to convert Brussels wins into domestic political advantage in Poland.
While avoiding positions which the PiS could use to depict him as too close to unpopular parts of von der Leyen’s agenda, Tusk indicated he will sway voters at home by presenting Poland as the EU’s source of stable leadership with France and Germany now in political turmoil.
Warsaw “will conjugate the word ‘security’ through all possible cases”, an official told Berlin researcher Jakub Jaraczewski on December 18.
“Poland takes over the presidency of the Council of the European Union at a time of uncertainty and concern,” said a programme document Warsaw circulated ahead of January 1.
“For Europe, this is the time of trial and decision,” where the EU “must protect itself and its citizens and take care of its immediate neighbourhood”, it said.
With Poland now spending 4.2 per cent of its GDP on defence, a figure it has stated it intended to increase to 4.7 per cent in 2025, Tusk said he believed security was an issue where his country could hold its own – both among other EU member states and US President-elect Donald Trump, who has suggested a 5 per cent target for NATO members.
The NATO target is currently 2 per cent of GDP.
The Polish PM has indicated he would strive to put distance between his government and von der Leyen on the more unpopular EU initiatives in his country: EU-Mercosur trade agreement, treaty change and the bloc’s “green” agenda.
Polish farmers and centre-right politicians have attacked the EU-Mercosur deal, which von der Leyen announced December 5. Polish People’s Party leader Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said at the time: “NO to the EU-Mercosur agreement,” which, he added, “threatens Polish farmers and consumers”.
Tusk was quick to position himself as leader, along with France, of the attempt to derail the trade agreement in the Council of the EU. On December 6, he told media: “If we had Italy on our side, we would probably have a blocking minority.”
Likewise, the PiS has virulently attacked a possible amendment of the EU treaties that would allow the bloc to take more decisions by majority rather than on a unanimous basis. He called it a “German plan” that would “annihilate the Polish State”.
Carefully distancing Poland’s upcoming presidency from any of these efforts on treaty change, Poland’s EU ambassador recently told the PAP Polish news agency: “No, we will not work on that. I don’t think the Council is interested in that.”
Regarding the Green Deal, a government minister told a Polish newspaper earlier this year the country would use its EU Council presidency to postpone additional fees for customers using fossil fuels to heat their homes. These so-called “ETS2” fees had been initially set to come into effect in 2027.
Next year will mark the second time Poland has held the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Its first took place in 2011, when its efforts to address the “Eurozone crisis” were limited by Warsaw’s then-status as a non-Eurozone member.
A new website dedicated to the upcoming Polish presidency proclaimed recently there would be “300 official meetings in Poland”, taking place in “24 cities” in the country.
On December 19, Poland announced the “official fruit” of its presidential term, the Polish apple. That led one apparently unimpressed X user to comment: “What is this nonsense? Is this kindergarten?”
