It is rare for a change of the head of state or government to have such a fundamental and positive impact on the position of a country in the world, as was the case with Poland in December 2023.
This was the case when Nelson Mandela replaced Frederik Willem de Klerk, Mikhail Gorbachev replaced Konstantin Chernenko, and Joe Biden replaced Donald Trump.
And now Donald Tusk’s return to the position of prime minister meant that, literally overnight, Poland, isolated, widely criticized and omitted when making any important decisions on international forums, once again became one of the main players in Europe and NATO.
On December 14, 2023, the day after the swearing in of his government, Tusk began to receive congratulations from the most important politicians in the world, from Joe Biden, through Emmanuel Macron to Olaf Scholz. And they were sincere congratulations, full of enthusiasm and hope.
“I look forward to working with you to show that democracies can meet the challenges that matter most in the lives of our nations. … I look forward to continuing our close cooperation regarding Ukraine as it defends its sovereignty and territorial integrity against Russia’s brutal aggression. … I assure you that the United States will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with Poland and fight the encroachment of authoritarianism into Europe. … I am confident that together we can make progress on issues affecting our shared prosperity, security and democratic values,” Joe Biden wrote.
Olaf Scholz published two entries with identical content – one in German, the other in Polish. These were congratulations to “dear Donald Tusk”.
“Donald Tusk wants Poland to be back in the heart of the EU – that’s where it belongs. I am glad that we can develop the EU and Polish-German relations, hand in hand with Poland, he wrote
The President of Ukraine also congratulated the new prime minister.
“The future of Ukraine and Poland lies in unity, mutual support and strategic partnership to defeat our common enemy. When we stand together, the freedom of both our nations is insurmountable. We appreciate Poland’s support. Together we strengthen each other and our entire Europe,” wrote Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Congratulations, Donald,” wrote the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. – Your experience and strong attachment to our European values will be valuable in building a stronger Europe, to the benefit of Poles. I look forward to working together.”
The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola: ‘Warm congratulations to Donald Tusk,’ she wrote. – As Poland’s new Prime Minister, a staunch supporter of the European Union and a dear friend, I look forward to working together for a prosperous Poland and a stronger Europe. We will face current challenges. “United.”
“I look forward to welcoming you again to the EU summit. Your experience and commitment to European values will help build a stronger and more united EU,” wrote Charles Michel, President of the European Council.
“We feel a change. Congratulations, Donald Tusk,” wrote Manfred Weber, chairman of the European People’s Party.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: “I look forward to working with Prime Minister Tusk on the issues most important to the citizens of both our countries. We are committed… to promoting the rule of law, fighting climate change and creating good middle-class jobs on both sides of the Atlantic. … As like-minded partners, Canada and Poland share universal values of respect for democracy and human rights. “We will continue to support Ukraine and hold Russia accountable for its illegal war of aggression.”
These congratulations show how great the sense of relief was in the world’s most important chancelleries that the eight-year anti-democratic rule in Poland had ended and how great the hope was that Poland would once again occupy a key position in continental systems.
In the years 2008-2015, i.e. during the first government of Donald Tusk and his PO-PSL coalition, Poland became extremely important in the European Union, sometimes beyond measure and beyond its economic position. In the most important capitals of Western Europe, there is little or no knowledge of Central and Eastern Europe. And these countries were undergoing dynamic changes, several of them became EU members, and Paris, Berlin or Madrid were still not particularly able to find these partner countries on the map of Europe. Poland knew a lot and was willingly listened to, which is why it determined the EU’s eastern policy.
And the situation became dramatic after the Russian invasion of Ukrainian Crimea in 2014. The policy of the European Union and NATO towards Russia was completely anachronistic: there were still hopes related to the timid democratization of Boris Yeltsin’s presidency, and the memory of the event in Pratica di Mare near Rome in 2002, when, in the presence of all heads of state or government of the member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance, Vladimir Putin signed the declaration of establishing the NATO-Russia Council, which was to coordinate mutual security policies.
Russian journalists who accompanied Putin at the time were convinced that this was the first step towards Russia’s admission to NATO and Vladimir Putin did not dismantle those rumors.
Many Western leaders, led by Angela Merkel, were convinced that one good, honest conversation with Putin was enough to return to that atmosphere and for cooperation with Putin’s Russia to become peaceful and partnership-like again.
Even the Russian invasion of Crimea did not convince everyone that those times would not return. Berlin and Paris still maintained lively diplomatic contacts with the Kremlin and continued to invest huge funds in Russia, believing that drawing it into the Western economic system would “pacify” its aggressive expansionism.
It will take another eight years, until February 24, 2022, for Western chancelleries to realize that there will be no more cooperation with Russia, that Russia has gone from a potential partner to a completely real threat to the whole of Europe, to the balance of power established after World War II. World War.
But no one had any idea how to transition to a new system of relations with this security-threatening “monster” from the East, no one was fully aware of the level of threat.
The previous Polish government, deprived of any credibility, was unable to break into the offices of Western politicians on this issue, to which it was simply not allowed. In this situation, the Baltic Countries tried to shape the EU and NATO policy towards Russia, but their political weight is so small that their voice was unable to change the procrastinating attitude of the West.
However, there was a growing awareness of the threat from Russia and, generally, from the so-called the “ring of evil”, i.e. an alliance of authoritarian countries that openly challenged Western democracy: Russia, China, North Korea and Iran and its acolytes in the Middle East.
Joe Biden was in Warsaw twice and twice, at the Royal Castle, he delivered historic speeches, de facto declaring war on the “ring of evil”: “this is a war between democracy and authoritarianism, we have to win this war,” he said.
OK, but he didn’t say how.
This is why the return of Poland and Donald Tusk in person was received with such enthusiasm. Europe needed a new strategy, and during over a year and a half of the war in Ukraine, it was unable to develop it on its own.
It was also due to the weakness of Western leadership. Angela Merkel’s policy towards Russia has been completely discredited. Germany, almost one hundred percent dependent on Russian supplies of energy resources, began to switch dramatically to supplies from other geographical regions and had to completely reorient its “Ostpolitik”. But there is a fairly common belief that although Chancellor Olaf Scholz has handled it well, he is still considered a weak, indecisive leader and torn by various doubts. And his social democratic SPD party is still haunted by the specter of his predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, one of the CEOs of Gazprom: when he appeared at the SPD congress, he unexpectedly received a storm of applause.
There were many hopes at the beginning of his first term that Emmanuel Macron would become the informal leader of the European Union: young, energetic, with a good rhetorical apparatus, with clear, bold visions of the development of France and a determined Europeanist, he was to replace Angela Merkel as the driver of the European locomotive. Unfortunately, the fiasco of many of his plans to reform the French economy, his indecision in implementing social policies, controversial anti-American philippic, and his continued faith in dialogue with Putin until the end, made his star fade as quickly as it rose.
The remaining large European countries, starting with Spain – a country without any “Sovietological” traditions, are mired in internal conflicts, have weak governments based on very fragile coalitions: their leaders are mainly concerned with maintaining power, not drawing new continental strategies.
And here Donald Tusk appeared. The day after he was sworn in, he found himself in Brussels, where EU leaders literally threw their arms around him.
Although when he was president of the European Council he did not enjoy much sympathy. Not everyone liked his authoritarian methods of exercising this function, which was supposed to consist in coordinating the work of meetings of EU political leaders, and not in being something like the “president of all presidents”.
Some of his political decisions also caused controversy: during his visit to Ankara, for example, he assured the right-wing Turkish president that the European Union was still waiting for this country with open arms.
But all these memories disappeared when the disgraced, universally despised Morawiecki was replaced by world format politician Donald Tusk.
And already at the first meeting of the European Council, despite the presence of Charles Michel, he began to set the tone of the proceedings. And everyone willingly agreed to it.
All official documents of the European Council and most documents of the European Commission already bear the mark of Tusk’s intervention.
First of all, regarding Russia and Ukraine. Only a few months have passed, and no one in the world, especially in Moscow, can have any doubts about the EU’s position towards the aggressor and his victim.
The EC immediately, under Tusk’s influence, developed a strategy for the development of the European arms industry, which is currently being implemented in the vast majority of member states. Once key issues such as strict compliance with the level of inflation and the level of internal debt have fallen into the background. “Difficult times require difficult decisions” – this is the maxim that guides European institutions today.
And less than a month ago, from Brussels, Donald Tusk literally needed two phone calls to immediately convene a summit of the “Weimar Triangle” that has been inactive for many years: France, Germany and Poland. For which theses were prepared by Tusk’s cabinet and which theses were fully and without unnecessary discussions approved by the President of France and the Chancellor of Germany.
In some capitals, especially Rome, a radical shift in the EU’s centre of political gravity was observed: from that meeting, the tone of the EU will be set by this triumvirate, in which Tusk plays a key role, and the position of countries such as Italy and the Netherlands, which, despite its small size, played a very important role in the Union under the leadership of Marek Rutte, suddenly weakened.
Now the media are writing that the until recently certain election of Ursula von der Leyen for a second term as President of the European Commission will be protested by this triumvirate and that the candidate of the “Weimarers” is to be the former head of the European Central Bank and former (unfortunately short-lived) Prime Minister of Italy Mario Draghi.
“In a show of unity aimed at easing tensions between France and Germany over the threat posed by an aggressive Russia, the leaders of Europe’s three leading military powers have agreed to increase global ammunition purchases for Ukraine and improve their long-range artillery offerings.
A hastily arranged meeting in Berlin between France, Germany and Poland did little to mask the fact that Paris and Berlin now have different viewpoints on the twin specters of Russian military advances in Ukraine and the refusal of the US Congress to approve further significant military aid to Kiev.
The contradiction in approach – mainly between the “hawkish” French President Emmanuel Macron and the eternally cautious German Chancellor Olaf Scholz – was exposed in a dramatic interview on French television, in which Macron said that Europe’s security and even Europe’s existence were at risk.
Recently elected Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, … who has just returned from meetings with Joe Biden in Washington, called on all sides to talk less and focus on delivering more weapons. … (The Guardian)
But Poland owes its key position in Europe and NATO not only to Tusk. It is impossible to overestimate the role that the head of Polish diplomacy, Radosław Sikorski, began to play in world diplomacy.
Just a week after his appointment as Minister of Foreign Affairs, a meeting of the heads of the CIA, Mossad and the heads of the services of Qatar and Egypt representing the Palestinians was held in Warsaw without unnecessary noise. This meeting resulted in subsequent rounds of talks on the release of the hostages and a possible ceasefire in Gaza, which, unfortunately, have not yet produced any concrete results.
Radosław Sikorski’s speech at the UN Security Council – his response to the outrageous lies of the Russian ambassador – followed by a series of interviews for American television – made him one of the most famous and admired politicians in the world.
By the way, it’s amazing that no one has ever managed to point out the lies of a representative of a totalitarian aggressor in a similar way before.
Sikorski, also thanks to his family connections, has a great influence on politics in the US, not only in democratic circles, but also in republican ones. He is ubiquitous, leading the way at meetings of EU and NATO foreign ministers, although he left the meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday, April 22, 2024, disappointed because his counterparts did not go beyond verbal declarations and avoided specific commitments regarding military aid for Ukraine.
Sikorski also has an influence on British politics, as his classmates at Oxford included, among others, Boris Johnson and David Cameron, former Prime Minister and currently Foreign Secretary of His Majesty’s Government. Both men are frequent guests at his renovated manor house near Bydgoszcz. And Great Britain is an absolutely key country in NATO
Individual EU and British governments seem to have already acknowledged and accepted Poland’s new position in international relations. No one anymore questions the fact that Poland largely determines the eastern policy of the European Union and NATO.
After an eight-year freeze on visits, Warsaw currently hosts up to two or three European heads of government or foreign ministers a week.
And although Giorgia Meloni was one of the first prime ministers to send congratulatory telegrams to Tusk after his election, Italy’s position is delicate because the government in Warsaw is considered liberal, and the political environment of Meloni and her cabinet is closely associated with the extreme right, in in which the previous Polish government was deeply immersed.
What may be surprising is the lack of any contacts between Madrid and Warsaw, the capital, which overnight became important again in Europe and the world.
Jacek Pałasiński