New government coalition agreed in Poland

Donald Tusk’s centre-right Civic Platform, the winner of Poland’s snap elections on 21 October, has clinched a coalition deal between his party and the smaller Polish Peasants’ Party.

The alliance was approved by both parties on 10 November – one day after Tusk was officially nominated as Poland’s next prime minister by President Lech Kaczynski. 

The new coalition is expected to take on a more business-friendly and pro-European direction. “We want to cooperate for the good of the country, with a conviction that together we will restore the sense of normalcy and decency in Poland’s politics,” said Tusk on 10 November. 

He also provided further details regarding future government members. 

British-born economist Jacek Rostowski – an advocate of Poland’s rapid adoption of the euro currency – has been nominated as finance minister.

Current member of the European Parliament Bogdan Klich was also designated as the likely new defence minister, while Radek Sikorski, a former defence minister, would become Poland’s new foreign minister. 

The full government line-up will be announced after further talks with the People’s Party. 

Tusk’s Civic Platform ousted Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s Law and Justice Party in elections on 21 October, winning 209 out of 460 seats in the Polish Parliament. Together with the 31 seats of the Polish Peasants’ Party, the new government will hold the necessary majority to enable it to pass new regulations.

The EU had hailed the election outcome in the hope of improving relations with Poland, which had been following an increasingly Eurosceptic path recently and even threatened to scupper a deal on EU institutional reform in June. 

The new cabinet is expected to be sworn in by President Lech Kaczynski on 16 November and confirmed by Parliament on the 23rd. 

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