Polish PM Donald Tusk calls for confidence vote after nationalist wins presidency

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00:00Let's begin. Our correspondent at Gulliver, Craig, who's been watching your developments for us in Warsaw.

00:04Gulliver, I'm very good to you. What is Navrotsky's primary aim now that he's president?

00:12Well, I mean, it may well be to simply block everything that the government tries to do.

00:17I think it's perhaps important to remind viewers that behind Carol Navrotsky stands Yaroslav Kaczynski,

00:23who is the leader of the Law and Justice Party, currently not of the ruling Law and Justice Party,

00:28because it was ousted in the parliamentary elections of 2023, won by the coalition led by Donald Tusk.

00:35So what Kaczynski really wants is to get back into power with his Law and Justice Party.

00:41And he may well think that the best way to do that is to make the government unable to function,

00:46unable to pass any legislation by having Carol Navrotsky simply veto everything.

00:51Now, Donald Tusk has just spoken for the first time since his ally, Raphael Traskowski's election defeat,

01:00with Yaroslav Kaczynski already calling for a technical government, for a change of government.

01:05He says, well, fine, let's have a vote of confidence.

01:08He says that he is confident that his coalition will win a vote of confidence in Parliament.

01:12And he says that it's important to show Poland and the world that the coalition stands strong.

01:17Donald Tusk says that he has no intention of taking a step back

01:21and that an emergency plan for this situation has already been worked out within the party.

01:28He said, of course, it's not possible to give all details

01:31and it's not possible to predict exactly what Carol Navrotsky's stance will be.

01:36But reading between the lines of his speech, it kind of seems to me

01:39that their idea is to pass pieces of legislation that are among the things that everyone can agree on,

01:47that are kind of in line with the nationalists' agenda,

01:51bringing back more industry under the control of Polish businesses, for example,

01:55to pass pieces of legislation that it's hard, would appear absurd for Carol Navrotsky to veto

02:02and to kind of break the idea that he will simply veto everything.

02:05But no one is denying that it's going to be extremely hard for Donald Tusk's coalition going forward.

02:11Clearly, he's decided to adopt a fighting stance right now anyway.

02:15OK, so Tusk calling for that vote of confidence, as you say.

02:19And as you just outlined, it would be perhaps silly for Navrotsky to go against policies

02:22that may be designed to create jobs for Polish people and to expand that sector

02:27and obviously sort of go for the greater prosperity of the country, in inverted commas.

02:31That's one of the issues.

02:32What about support for Ukraine, Gulliver?

02:34Because clearly that is something that has, by extension, been mentioned too by Navrotsky,

02:39talking about putting Polish people first rather than Ukrainian refugees.

02:45The majority of Polish people absolutely support continuing to help Ukraine militarily

02:51and to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia.

02:54I say the majority, but there is a minority that is not inconsiderable that is not in favour of that.

03:00But remember, 6.2% of Poles voted for the avowedly pro-Russian candidate, Dzergorsh Brown,

03:06which is incredible in a country like Poland with the history that it has with Russia.

03:10So even support for Ukraine in terms of military support is perhaps faltering a little bit here.

03:16But I don't think we can expect Karol Navrotsky to want to stop Poland from helping out

03:21in the way that it does with weapons and, of course,

03:23with the logistics hub for foreign weapons coming in at the Polish airport of Zeshov in the south-east of the country.

03:29He is ruling out having Ukraine join NATO under his watch, though.

03:33That was a promise he had to make to the far-right candidate, Swamyu Mensen,

03:37in his bid to win over his voters, which he did with astounding success.

03:42That's 90% of Swamyu Mensen's voters went for Karol Navrotsky in the second round.

03:48And he's also ruled out sending Polish troops to Ukraine,

03:51but that's actually something that Rafael Traskowski was also against.

03:55And then where he's much more anti-Ukrainian is in terms of the situation of Polish refugees in Poland.

04:01They've been very much stigmatised lately, particularly by the right-wing political campaign,

04:05but not only actually by the right, although, in fact, the vast majority of them work and pay taxes

04:11and contribute to Polish economic growth.

04:13They've been stigmatised among those of them who are benefiting from social payments,

04:18and Karol Navrotsky would, I think, like to cut those.

04:21But he's not the government, actually.

04:23I mean, he could veto a government plan to increase them, for example,

04:26or he could propose a plan to cut them, but he doesn't have the power to do that just on his own.

04:31Where does he stand regarding Donald Trump, Gulliver?

04:34I understand that Navrotsky is very much a Trump man, or fan, at least.

04:39Yeah, he's a fan of Donald Trump, and he won't have anywhere else to turn,

04:42because he's not going to get on very well with the European leaders,

04:45who I think very much wanted Rafael Traskowski, seen as the pro-European of the two candidates,

04:51to win this election.

04:53Karol Navrotsky is more Euroscaptive.

04:56I mean, he's not against being in the European Union, but he wants less Europe.

05:00He wants less European intervention in Polish affairs.

05:03And he represents a party that was roundly condemned by the European Union

05:09during its eight years in office for democratic backsliding.

05:12So he really has to count on his alliance with Donald Trump.

05:16And that may lead him to face some difficult decisions,

05:20because Donald Trump is not keen, of course, on spending more U.S. money on defence in Europe.

05:26He wants the Europeans to spend more money on their own defence.

05:29Poland is doing that.

05:30But in...

05:32Emotions running high, as you hear.

05:36So, I mean, yeah, Karol Navrotsky may find himself not as much in agreement with Donald Trump

05:43about European security as he might think he is at the moment.

05:45But on the face of things, he's a fan, and I think he thought that that would also help him get elected.

05:49And people talk a lot about Russian meddling in European elections.

05:53But here, the Trump administration absolutely explicitly endorsed Karol Navrotsky.

05:59I said the European leaders favoured Raphael Traskoski,

06:01and then came straight out saying who they wanted to win the election.

06:04That's not normally the done thing.

06:06The Trump administration did that.

06:08Governor Craig, as always, thank you very much indeed.

06:10Governor Craig reporting from Warsaw.

06:12Governor Craig, as always, thank you very much for joining us today.

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