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Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk struck a defiant tone on Wednesday ahead of a vote of no confidence that he called in order to shore up support after his candidate lost the presidential election.
Tusk told parliament that he did not believe in capitulation and instead urged his ruling coalition to close ranks and “mobilise” in order to win parliamentary elections in 2027.
“Each of us in this room knows the taste of victory and the bitterness of defeat, but I don’t know the word surrender,” Tusk said.
Tusk called the confidence vote shortly after rightwing opposition candidate Karol Nawrocki was elected president on June 1, defeating the ruling coalition’s frontrunner and mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski. While Tusk is expected to survive the parliamentary vote, Nawrocki’s win has exposed strains and ideological divides within his coalition.
The premier promised a cabinet reshuffle next month, while calling on his coalition lawmakers to “understand what team play means”. He added: “We are facing 2.5 years of very hard work under conditions that will not change for the better.”
Lawmakers from the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party on Wednesday snubbed Tusk’s speech to join a news conference outside the parliament building held by their party founder and longtime Tusk nemesis, Jarosław Kaczyński.
Kaczyński called the vote of confidence “important but pre-determined”.
He vowed to pursue his fight against Tusk to stop Poland from allegedly “losing once more its independence”, repeating old claims that the premier is a stooge for foreign powers.
“We do not agree with this entire political agenda, and we will do everything we can to replace it with good, Polish politics,” Kaczyński said.
Leaders of Tusk’s main coalition partners have pledged support ahead of Wednesday’s vote, which the premier called quickly in a bid to quell dissent.
Soon after the presidential election loss, Marek Sawicki, a senior lawmaker in the pro-farmer Polish People’s party (PSL), had urged Tusk to step down. Szymon Hołownia, the leader of another Tusk partner, the centrist Poland 2050, called for a renegotiated coalition pact, while confirming his formation would back the premier on Wednesday.
But surviving the no confidence vote is “only the first of several hurdles Tusk will have to overcome if he does not want to spend two more years running a lame duck government”, said Adam Gendźwiłł, political science professor at Warsaw university.
Tusk’s coalition controls 242 of the 460 seats in Poland’s Sejm, or lower house, with the next parliamentary elections not due until 2027. Snap elections could only be triggered if a supermajority of 307 MPs decide to dissolve parliament.
Nawrocki’s win scuppered Tusk’s plan to reset his reform agenda with an ally in the presidential palace. In Poland, presidents can veto bills — a power already used by outgoing president Andrzej Duda, a PiS nominee considered to be more moderate than Nawrocki but who has blocked Tusk’s judicial reforms.
The promise of those reforms also underpinned the European Commission’s decision to unlock billions in EU funds frozen during a stand-off with the previous PiS-led government over rule of law concerns.
Tusk warned on Wednesday that Nawrocki was likely to oppose his legislative agenda, but suggested that he was willing to work with the president. “I will not seek conflict at any cost,” Tusk added. “No one is as keen as I am to end the legal chaos.”
Tusk is also banking on political self-preservation to keep his allies in check. Under Polish electoral law, parties must win at least 5 per cent of the vote to enter parliament — a threshold that recent polls suggest some coalition members could struggle to meet. Hołownia ran for the presidency but secured just under 5 per cent in the first round of voting.
“Tusk is facing a new fight not only with a difficult president but also with coalition partners who will be very determined to survive,” said Gendźwiłł.
Latest polls suggest that PiS could return to power in snap elections, with the help of the far-right Confederation party — another motivating factor for Tusk’s partners not to desert him.
“Reversing sentiment dynamics will be difficult, if at all possible,” said Marcin Duma, chief executive of pollster Ibris.
Tusk’s government must present the 2026 budget to parliament by the end of September — a deadline likely to intensify debates over fiscal priorities. Left-wing coalition politicians and business leaders have clashed this month over a possible rise in the minimum salary. Credit rating agencies have warned of heightened fiscal risks following Nawrocki’s win.
The domestic fallout also threatens to undermine Tusk’s broader ambitions. Poland holds the rotating EU presidency until the end of the month, a six-month period in which Tusk sought to position Warsaw as a leading advocate in Europe for higher defence spending and continued support to Ukraine in its defence against Russia.
Instead, the election has forced him to shift back to the fractious reality of Polish politics.
Tusk has said that he had contingency plans in place to manage the cohabitation. But Nawrocki has since reaffirmed his opposition to Ukraine joining Nato or the EU — putting him at odds with most EU governments, including his own.
