Donald Tusk, leader of the main Polish opposition party Civic Platform. /
The leader of the Civic Platform leads the war against the PiS Executive, which he considers guilty of the tension with Brussels and a policy of abuse of power and corruption
“We know why they want to leave (the European Union); to violate democratic rules with impunity. This is how Donald Tusk, leader of the main Polish opposition party Civic Platform, attacked the Government from the Warsaw Castle Square, in one of the massive demonstrations that were held throughout the country on Sunday. The former President of the European Council, with a career of seven years in Brussels, and one of the leaders in the battle against ‘Brexit’, has raised the banner of integration and Europeanism without edges in Poland since last month of Julio decided to return to national politics “one hundred percent,” as he pointed out.
He is fully committed to ending the architecture of the ultra-conservative PiS party, led in the shadows by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, with a marked history of rights violations (LGTBI, women, freedom of the press), judicial control and several cases of corruption and abuse of power that affected its top leaders (including Kaczynski himself) just over two years ago.
Tusk (1957), also head of the European People’s Party, formally returned to the Civic Platform throne last July. And he did so by denouncing the “evil” ruling party; a term very much in line with that reflection – “I wonder where in hell the promoters of Brexit will end up” – that the politician launched during one of the most critical phases of the negotiations for the exit of the United Kingdom.
Tusk stood out then as a very active guy on Twitter, with direct messages that acquired headline rank by system and the occasional video with action movie music (in the style of ‘Armageddon’) to present the European summits. “I may be more cautious with my tweets, at least initially,” said his successor, Charles Michel, when he took over from him in November 2019.
The goal of unity
This graduate in History from the University of Gdansk, originally linked to the ‘Solidarity’ movement and who has also worked as a journalist, succeeded Herman van Rompuy in 2014 at the head of the institution that coordinates the EU States. “When they ask me to define my two terms as President of the European Council with a couple of words, I always answer, without hesitation, with just one: ‘Unity’, the ‘leitmotif’, the task, almost my obsession, from the beginning ». This is how he synthesizes his career in office.
And that “unit” continues to be his objective (now in domestic territory) at the head of a formation that he has reached as ‘the savior’, after a gray path in politics under the control of Boris Budka. His fast and forceful dialectic is managing to revitalize the Civic Platform, which already held the reins of the country between 2007 and 2014. And which now sets itself the objective of forcing an electoral change before the scheduled date for the next appointment with the polls in 2023.
Tusk wants to repeat as Prime Minister of Poland and is dedicated to the battle against a potential Polexit that the Government denies will happen, that the polls do not support (88% of Poles advocate remaining in the EU and only 7% I would welcome the exit) and that, at least, in ‘expulsion’ format it does not have a legal form in the EU Treaties.
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