Tusk and Hołownia meet on 29 October to set Polska 2050's place in government

Talks after Pełczyńska-Nałęcz's exit

Szymon Hołownia is due to meet Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Thursday, 29 October, in the afternoon, to settle how Polska 2050 will be represented in the governing coalition. Polsat News confirmed the meeting, which it said is meant to help determine the role the party will play in the ruling coalition. The talks follow Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz's announcement on X on Thursday, 22 October, that she was leaving the government and the chair of Polska 2050. In that post she left the party in the hands of its founder, Hołownia, who had stepped away from it earlier and then returned. Her exit came right after a Sejm vote on term limits for local governments, according to Polsat News, and her post stated:

“I am leaving Donald Tusk's government, because values are more important to me than posts.”

On Tuesday, 27 October, she told Kanał Zero that Tusk used the strength of a larger coalition partner to threaten and damage people's reputations and political standing, though she declined to call it mobbing. She also said she had been questioned by prosecutors over 700 zloty from a decade earlier. Asked about her remarks, Hołownia did not confirm them and said:

“There were no talks about my presence in the government, there were no concrete proposals regarding my presence in the government.”

Ministry posts and the culture ministry

On Tuesday, 27 October, Tusk said he would propose Agnieszka Bartol, currently Poland's permanent representative to the EU, for the funds and regional policy post. RMF24 reports that the talks may bring two or three deputy-minister posts, with candidates limited to Polska 2050 politicians who sit in the Sejm. A change in the Ministry of Culture is also on the table, with Hołownia reportedly wanting to lead it with deputy prime minister rank. Włodzimierz Czarzasty, the Sejm marshal and leader of the New Left, told the press that his side has no objection to the idea. Coalition sources cited by Wirtualna Polska consider a cabinet post for Hołownia very unlikely. One of them noted that a deputy premier role for him would prompt a demand from the Unia Centrum, which would otherwise be the only coalition party without one. WP also points out that Tusk took the Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy from Hołownia's party and is satisfied with the work of the current culture minister.

Who could lead Polska 2050

RMF24 reports that only one candidate may stand in the coming leadership vote: Paweł Śliz, a Sejm member and former club chair of Polska 2050. The vote would go ahead even with a single candidate, with members answering yes if they back him and no if they oppose him. Śliz would take the top job only if he wins more than 50% support in the vote. Hołownia said on Wednesday, 28 October, that he does not intend to run for party chair. The talks on government posts therefore run in parallel with the search for a new leader.

Presidential approval and the calendar

President Karol Nawrocki must approve the changes, and commentators on the right have noted that the constitution sets no deadline for doing so. Wirtualna Polska reported unofficially that he does not plan to hold them up and will decide at the latest in early November. Government spokesman Adam Szłapka confirmed that the documents reached the presidential palace on Tuesday, 27 October. Nawrocki's calendar is tight: he flies to Senegal on Friday, 30 October, has convened the National Security Council for Tuesday, 3 November, and leaves for a two-day V4 summit on Wednesday, 4 November. Tusk has decided to make finance minister Andrzej Domański a deputy prime minister, after the opposition lost a no-confidence vote in which it accused him of driving the budget into ruin.