Poland takes EU baton as Tusk braces for pivotal presidential election

This article is part of the Polish Presidency of the EU special report.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk will be laser-focused on a presidency in the first half of next year — but it won’t be the one that allows Poland to shepherd legislation through the Council of the European Union.

Instead, his attention will be commandeered by the May Polish presidential election and the critical task of ensuring a friendly successor to incumbent Andrzej Duda.

Duda, an ally of the former governing Law and Justice (PiS) party, has missed few opportunities to undermine Tusk’s credibility and popular support by preventing his year-old government from carrying out much of its electoral program. He has even refused to sign off on government candidates for ambassadors.

Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition still leads the nationalist PiS in the polls, but this advantage may not last if the country elects another PiS-backed president who continues to kneecap the Tusk government until the end of its term in 2027.

The election comes as Tusk tries to deliver on promises made during last year’s campaign — such as easing access to abortion or permitting civil partnerships regardless of gender — while keeping his rainbow coalition with the Polish People’s Party, Poland 2050 and The Left in line.

These domestic pressures will constrain Poland in its six-month EU presidency starting Jan. 1, said Piotr Buras, head of office at the European Council on Foreign Relations in Warsaw. “The Polish government perceives this election as absolutely fundamental for the country’s future. This is basically what matters most for Tusk.”

One EU diplomat said: “Member states and the Commission are concerned that the Polish Council presidency will put national interests before European ones, like on migration, trade, energy or climate protection.

“They are not seen as an honest broker. It seems to be all about the [Polish] presidential election.”

Warsaw, however, downplayed the impact of the presidential election on its turn to set the agenda in Brussels. “Poland will be [an] honest broker and the most efficient presidency possible,” Poland’s EU Affairs Minister Adam Szłapka told POLITICO. “Elections, including the presidential one in Poland, are a natural part of democracies and won’t affect in any way our work in Brussels.”

Donald Trump’s return as president of the United States in January — and in particular his position on Ukraine — could prove a counterweight to domestic political pressures and force Tusk to pay more attention to events in Brussels. 

Together with the Baltics, Poland has led the charge for the EU to provide more military and financial support to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Warsaw now fears that Trump’s much-touted peace deal could force Ukraine to concede land to Russia, thereby emboldening Moscow’s geopolitical ambitions. 

This will be Tusk’s focus during Poland’s Council presidency, said Andrzej Bobinski, managing director at Polish think tank Polityka Insight, and will require that he “navigat[e] these difficult waters around Trump, Ukraine, and his leadership in Europe.”

Polish Minister Szłapka said his country’s priority for its presidency is “security in its different dimensions, including [the] external and internal security of the EU.”

“With Putin’s war next door, among global tensions and internal challenges, it is security of the Europeans that is the foundation and the uniting factor,” he said.

The question, however, will be how much Poland will (and wants to) move the needle.

Ever since Tusk — a former president of the European Council — returned to the EU’s top table last year, Brussels has hoped the Polish prime minister will work with France and Germany to revalitize the EU. 

But the trio — known as the “Weimar Triangle” — has had only limited success since Tusk’s return to power, partly because of his national preoccupations. While Tusk did play a key role in securing Ursula von der Leyen a second mandate as president of the European Commission, his European counterparts have often felt his attention is divided. Meanwhile, Paris and Berlin have experienced their own domestic chaos, with Germany now heading to the polls early next year.

“Will Tusk now finally take up the gauntlet?” asked one EU official, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive talks.

The Polish representation to Brussels, not Warsaw, is more likely to drive action at the EU level over the next six months, diplomats said. 

“Tusk paints politics in very broad strokes,” said Bobinski of Polityka Insight, adding he doesn’t believe the Polish leader “will have the attention span and the will to really go deep into Brussels politics.”

There are also some policy elephants in the room. 

Tusk’s return toppled the nationalist-conservative PiS administration, which had sided with Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán to thwart various EU agendas. While the changing of the guard has returned Warsaw to the centrist, pro-European camp, Poland still finds itself outside the general European consensus on more delicate files such as EU climate policy.

Overall, however, the bar for Poland’s presidency is relatively low following Hungary’s inflammatory turn in the chair. The new European Commission will also still be gearing up, with legislative proposals not expected to land until later in the Polish presidency.

“They won’t do much, but they also won’t disappoint much,” the EU official said.

Barbara Moens reported from Brussels. Wojciech Kość reported from Warsaw. Dionisios Sturis contributed reporting from Brussels.