Why Poland’s Donald Tusk is mending EU ties

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Good morning. Today, our Warsaw correspondent reports on Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s trip to Paris and Berlin, and Denmark’s climate minister tells our energy correspondent that the EU’s green goals also need to factor in the bloc’s potential enlargement.

Three Musketeers

After years of feuding between Warsaw and its EU partners, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk sought to press the reset button yesterday with a visit to both Paris and Berlin, writes Raphael Minder.

Context: Tusk promised that his coalition’s landmark victory in October would put Poland back at the heart of EU policymaking, after he had also warned voters that re-electing the Law and Justice (PiS) party after eight years of government could pave the way for a “Polexit”.

But Tusk, who is also a former president of the European Council, was forced to put foreign policy on the back burner upon taking office in order to respond to a PiS backlash, as the former governing party sought to block the coalition’s agenda with the backing of both President Andrzej Duda and a constitutional court filled with PiS-appointed judges.

Yesterday, following a visit to French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, Tusk evoked the battle cry of The Three Musketeers — “All for one, one for all” — calling for European unity on defence and in dealing with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

But rebuilding relations with Germany may prove harder for Tusk after years of nationalist rule by PiS, and given that the opposition in Warsaw accuses him of being a German stooge.

Tusk has also inherited the former government’s claim for fresh reparations against Germany amounting to €1.3tn to pay for damages and losses inflicted by the Nazis during their wartime occupation of Poland. 

After meeting Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin in the afternoon, Tusk said that “history would not forgive us if today we were unable to build a united Europe that can resist its neighbour’s aggression”.

But the Polish leader also indicated that he expected Germany to do its part to mend the relationship, including on the reparations claim. “I would love for historical reflection to serve future and common security,” Tusk said. “The Germans have something to do here.”

The two leaders were also asked about Trump’s comments threatening not to defend Nato members who do not meet the alliance’s military spending target.

“I will urge Europe’s Nato partners to increase their funding,” Tusk said, noting that Poland was already spending double the target of 2 per cent of gross domestic product.

“We must stand on our own feet, counting on co-operation with the US,” Tusk added. 

Chart du jour: Draining

Ireland and Germany are among a number of countries that have introduced restrictions on new data centres, as fears mount that their huge energy usage is putting excessive pressure on national climate targets and electricity grids.

Greening accession

The EU’s climate targets have a big Ukraine-sized hole in them. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, Denmark’s climate minister tells Alice Hancock.

Context: The European Commission last week recommended that the bloc cut greenhouse gas emissions by 90 per cent by 2040, compared to 1990 levels. But it made no mention of the impact that the accession of Ukraine and eight other candidate countries would have on emissions targets.

Dan Jørgensen said that it was clear that EU enlargement would impact “everything”. “We need to start taking that into account already . . . in making our targets and legislation,” the Danish climate minister said.

EU diplomats have quietly voiced concerns that their countries will have to balance out the higher emissions levels from new members for the EU to meet its climate goals.

Ukraine’s accession was “the elephant in the room”, said one diplomat.

But Jørgensen, who has been floated as potential future EU climate commissioner, sees the accession of Ukraine and others not as a hindrance to climate ambition but “as a chance”. “If the EU is enlarged it means that we have more countries that will stand behind the ambitious targets,” he said.

“This is a country at war and maybe they don’t really need us to tell them what to do with regards to saving the climate . . . but they are very ambitious,” he said.

“It would have been better if we had not had a war . . . and there would not be cities to rebuild because they had been bombed,” Jørgensen added. “But now that they are to be rebuilt, it is a chance to do it in a sustainable and rational way.”

What to watch today

1. EU-Armenia partnership council.

2. German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock meets her Palestinian counterpart, Riyad al-Maliki, in Berlin.

Now read these