FINANCIAL TIMES: UUDEN EUROOPPA-NEUVOSTON PUHEENJOTAJAN DONALD TUSKIN CV Profile: Donald Tusk Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk arrives at a Special Meeting of the European Council at EU Council headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, 30 August 2014. EU leaders are expected to agree on key appointments to the bloc this evening, at a specially convened summit that is also due to focus on the escalating situation in Ukraine, amid calls to ratchet up sanctions. EPA/STEPHANIE LECOCQ©EPA As the centre-forward for a local football team of fellow Solidarity supporters in the 1980s, Donald Tusk had an uncanny knack of popping up in the right place at the right time to fire home winning goals. This week, as support swelled from European heads of state for the Polish Prime Minister to take the job of European Council President, Mr Tusk found himself seizing the opportunity to give his country its most powerful job ever in Europe, and remove any doubt of its clout in the continent. “Mr Tusk...has brought Poland to the heart of Europe,” outgoing president Herman Van Rompuy told reporters as he announced the selection of Mr Tusk. His seven years leading one of the fastest-growing countries in Europe have made him one of the continent’s most respected politicians, successful at home and abroad. As premier, his term has been marked by his deft brokering of consensus and compromise at the head of a ruling coalition, a skill that those close to him say have made him the ideal person to succeed Mr van Rompuy in Brussels. Ambitious but naturally circumspect and considered, Mr Tusk had not officially announced his candidacy, and had in the past denied interest in the role. But the 57-year-old, who enjoys a close relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and has in recent years cemented Poland’s status in Brussels as a key power broker, reassessed his options in recent weeks as support grew. During a recent visit to Brussels, Mr Tusk was flattered by how often he was approached by officials from European countries urging him to take the job, according to a member of the Polish delegation. His reticence stemmed from a sense that his strengths lie in an administrative style of governance, working with a small, tight-knit group of close advisers, rather than the more broad, front-facing, steering role demanded by the Presidency. There are few who doubt his credentials. A passionate believer in both the free market and European integration, Tusk worked at a co-operative while Poland was under martial law and his first stab at national politics saw him co-found a party than ran under the slogan “Neither the right nor the left, just straight to Europe”. Born and raised in Gdansk, Tusk read history at the city’s university, before joining the Solidarity trade union movement that was born in the Baltic sea port and ultimately toppled communist rule in Poland., He has been a consensual politician, combining the ability to make compromises and not exploit political differences - Paweł Świeboda, demosEUROPA Tusk co-founded the city’s Independent Students’ Association and was a journalist for the trade union’s “Samorządność” weekly, before he moved into national politics. A promising career in Poland’s parliament bloomed, through leadership of a series of various liberal parties, before a bruising experience in the country’s presidential election in 2005 marked his political coming of age. Mr Tusk, who won the first round of the election but ultimately narrowly lost the run-off to Lech Kaczynski, was smeared throughout by accusations that his grandfather Józef had served in the Wehrmacht for Nazi Germany, which carries strong negative connotations in Poland. Defeated but more politically savvy as a result, Mr Tusk slunk away to lick his wounds, before exacting revenge two years later when his Civic Platform party topped the parliamentary elections in 2007, making him Prime Minister, a more powerful role in Poland than the presidency. Mr Tuskhas brought Poland to the heart of Europe - Herman Van Rompuy “He has been a consensual politician, combining the ability to make compromises and not exploit political differences,” said Paweł Świeboda, President of demosEUROPA. ”He’s certainly someone who has shown he can bring the crowd together.” Son of a carpenter and a nurse, Mr Tusk is a member of Poland’s Slavic Kashubian ethnic minority, and is named after a British aristocrat whom his grandmother fell in love with when she was young. Fresh-faced and sprightly, he is a keen user of Twitter, where he blends policy pronouncements with snippets of his life away from work, such as his penchant for homemade cucumber salad, notes on back garden football matches, or photos of his mother. What complicated his decision to leave Warsaw for Brussels is the resulting fate of a Mr Tusk-less Civic Platform, which trails rightwing opponents in polls ahead of next year’s general election, and lacks a natural successor. “The [party] may disintegrate before the election,” said Peter Attard Montalto, an analyst at Nomura. “However, he will have secured one of the most senior European policy making slots for Poland and Emerging Europe more generally – realising Poland’s hopes of being ‘at the big table’ next to Germany.” ft/intl/cms/s/0/2b7fc0ce-2f9c-11e4-83e4-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3BxVbYUGz
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 09:44:02 +0000
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