Poland doesn’t want Donald Tusk to be reelected as EU president

Donald Tusk is all set to be re-elected as the President of the European Council. But he will not have unanimous support. Opposition for Tusk has surfaced from strange quarters; it is his own country Poland that is vehemently opposed to his re-election. Poland’s ruling party the Law and Justice Party (PiS) refuses to acknowledge Tusk as a Polish candidate. They have now named Polish Euro-MP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski as a rival for Tusk. Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said, “This is our candidate and he is in the game. This is the only Polish candidate right now for the post of the European Council head. There is no other Polish candidate”.

The enmity between Tusk and the ruling party goes back a ways. Donald Tusk was the Prime Minister of Poland and was in office from 20017 to 2014. And his party the Civic platform is in direct opposition with the current ruling party. The rift runs deeper between Tusk and Jarosław Kaczyński, the chair of PiS. Tusk was in office when the President of the country Lech Kaczynski died in a plane crash near Smolensk, Russia. Jarosław Kaczyński holds Tusk morally responsible for the death of his twin.

Tusk’s first term will be expiring in May and he seems to be set to return for a second term of 30 months as most EU states support his reappointment. Jacek Saryusz-Wolski is also a Civic Platform member, but he is at odds with the higher level leadership of the party. Earlier he was not allowed to represent the party’s delegation in the European parliament. Now that he has been set to contest for presidency of EC against Tusk, he will probably be expelled from the party.