Opposition leader and potential future prime minister Donald Tusk set off to Brussels to discuss the chance to launch the nation’s recovery money, which was frozen due to the rule of law concerns in Poland.
As Polish opposition parties have officially declared their will to form a new government after their electoral success earlier this month, Tusk has launched an effort to warm relations with Brussels, damaged during the eight-year rule of the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, and convince the European Commission to release EU funds allocated for Poland under the Recovery and Resilience Facility.
“It is very good that Donald Tusk wants to agree on a procedure for obtaining these funds for Poland as soon as possible even before taking over the prime minister’s portfolio,” Tusk’s Civic Platform (PO, EPP) MEP, former foreign and defence minister Radoslaw Sikorski told Euractiv.pl.
Tusk recently faced criticism from the ruling camp for not delivering his promise from one of his election campaign rallies that he would visit Brussels and get the money launched a day after the elections, even though opposition politicians explained it was nothing more than a metaphor.
PiS MEP, also former foreign minister Anna Fotyga, contacted by Euractiv.pl, refused to comment on Tusk’s visit. Asked about Tusk’s electoral promise, she said that should she listen to such statements, she would expect trucks loaded with euros to stand at the Polish border. “Nowhere can I see them,” she concluded sarcastically.
In Brussels, Tusk would meet European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, as European Commission spokesman Eric Mamer told Euractiv Poland, calling it an “introductory meeting.”
The former European Council president also plans to talk with EU Commissioners for Economy and Trade, Paolo Gentiloni and Valdis Dombrovskis, Manfred Weber, head of the European People’s Party, of which Tusk’s PO is a member, told private Polish RMF FM radio.
The EU Commission has frozen €35.4 million for Poland under the RRF, conditioning the release of the money on having achieved a couple of milestones related to the rule of law, which the Polish government agreed with Brussels. So far, the EU executive found PiS’ attempts to deliver on the milestones unsatisfactory.
EU Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders told the Financial Times earlier this month that the new government would have a chance for the money to be unblocked, but for that purpose, concrete reforms are needed, especially regarding judicial independence.
(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek & Sonia Otfinowska | Euractiv.pl)
