Donald Tusk - President of the European Council: biography, family, career

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:45

Donald Tusk, who was born on April 22, 1957 in the city of Gdansk, is a Polish politician who has been President of the European Council since August 30, 2014. Prior to taking this post, he was from 2003 to 2014. was the chairman of the liberal-conservative party "Civic Platform" (Polish Platforma Obywatelska, abbreviated PO), and also from 2007 to 2014. - Prime Minister of Poland.

Family

Donald Tusk's ancestors, both paternal and maternal, are Kashubians by nationality. This small nation lives in the northern part of Poland along the coast of the B altic Sea, including in the area of the city of Gdansk. They survived the Second World War, during which they were sent to forced labor, and were also imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camps of Stutthof and Neuengamme. August 2, 1944 Józef Tuskgrandfather of Donald Tusk, was drafted into the Wehrmacht, as he had German citizenship, which was automatically granted to the inhabitants of Danzig after the Nazi occupation. He probably deserted, because three months later, on November 24, 1944, he ended up in the ranks of the Polish Corps, which fought against the Nazis on the Western Front.

In 2005, during the presidential elections in Poland, political opponents from the Law and Justice party tried to use his grandfather's short stay in the German army against Tusk and, in connection with this fact, accused him of lack of patriotism.

Donald is married and, together with his wife Malgorzata, is raising a son and a daughter. Mikhail Tusk, the son of Donald Tusk, among other things, worked as a journalist for the daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, and in 2012 was involved in an economic adventure. His daughter Katarzyna occasionally appears on television. She participated in the Polish version of the program "Dancing with the Stars" and also writes articles for one of the Internet sites dedicated to fashion. Tusk currently lives in the resort town of Sopot, located near Gdansk.

He is fluent in German and English.

Anti-communist activity

Donald Tusk's father was a carpenter and died in 1972. The dispersal of the workers' demonstration in 1970 was a key moment in the formation of Tusk's political views. He began to actively participate in opposition activities against the communist regime in Poland. As a student of historyFaculty of the University of Gdansk, in the late 1970s he became one of the founders of the local student committee "Solidarity". Its creation was a response to the murder of a member of a workers' human rights organization, for which the opposition considered the Polish state security service responsible. In addition, Tusk took part in the activities of the opposition Free Trade Unions of the Coastal Region. In 1980, he also became one of the co-founders of the Independent Union of Students. In 1980, Donald Tusk completed his studies with a thesis, the theme of which was myths and legends concerning the personality of Jozef Piłsudski.

Career start

Donald Tusk, whose biography had not previously had particularly acute moments, a few months after the August 1980 strike, began working as a journalist in the weekly Samorządność ("Self-Organization") and was elected chairman of the working committee of the "Solidarity" cell in his publishing house. After the introduction of martial law in 1981, he was fired from this publishing house and received a ban on professional activities because of his oppositional views. From 1984 to 1989, the future head of the European Council was a simple worker in the cooperative "Svetlik" (Świetlik) created by the Gdansk opposition, where, under the leadership of Maciej Plazhinsky, he performed dangerous high- altitude work.

Party Affairs

After the fall of communism Donald Tusk, Jan KrzysztofBielecki and Janusz Lewandowski founded the Liberal Democratic Congress party in 1989. In 1991, Tusk was elected chairman of the party and entered the Sejm, the Polish parliament, for the first time. In 1992, his party supported a vote of no confidence against then Prime Minister Jan Olszewski and then a minority government under Olszewski's successor Hanna Suchocka. In 1993, parliament was dissolved ahead of schedule, and in the elections that followed, the Liberal Democratic Congress failed to overcome the five percent threshold. After the lost vote, it was decided to unite with the Democratic Union party, which was similar in political program and was led by former Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki. The resulting political alliance was called the Freedom Alliance. After losing in 2000 the struggle for the chairmanship of the party to Bronislaw Geremek, Tusk left the Union of Freedom and in early 2001, together with Andrzej Olechowski and Maciej Plazhinski, founded a new political association, which became known as the Civic Platform Party.

Tusk, back in 1997, gained more than 230,000 votes in the elections to the Polish Senate from Gdansk. Being a deputy of the Seimas, he was its vice-chairman from 2001 to 2005, and before that (from 1997 to 2001) - deputy chairman. From 2003 to 2006, Tusk represented the Civic Platform in parliament as the head of the faction. In addition, he was also party chairman from 2003 to 2014.

2005 presidential election

In the presidential elections on October 9, 2005, Tusk received 36.3% of the vote in the first round of voting. It was the best result among the presented candidates, but he did not score the 50% necessary for victory. On October 23, 2005, in the second round of elections, Donald Tusk fought against the mayor of Warsaw, Lech Kaczynski, who had previously received 33.1%. Kaczynski won with a ratio of 53.5% vs. 46.5.

2007 parliamentary elections

After the collapse of the former government coalition led by the Law and Justice party, it became necessary to hold early parliamentary elections held on October 21, 2007. As a result, the Civic Platform party won 41.51% of the vote, while Law and Justice, led by Prime Minister and brother of the President Yaroslav Kaczynski, managed to get only 32%. The Civic Platform in the Sejm merged with the moderately conservative Polish People's Party, which mainly represents the interests of farmers. The formed alliance received a parliamentary majority - 240 out of 460 deputies. The parties agreed to form a coalition immediately after winning the elections.

Beginning November 16, 2007, Tusk led the Polish government while serving as prime minister. In his first speech as head of government, on November 23, 2007, he announced the need for the speedy ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and the introduction in Poland of a singleEuropean currency. In addition, he advocated improving relations with Germany, which were quite tense under his predecessor Kaczynski. Tusk called for the revival of the Weimar Triangle - the close relationship between Warsaw, Paris and Berlin. Even during the election campaign before the parliamentary elections, Tusk relied on international cooperation.

After the 2011 parliamentary elections

In the Seimas elections held on October 9, 2011, the Civic Platform party received 39.2% of the vote. Thanks to this, the Civic Platform was represented in the parliament by 206 deputies and was the strongest faction. Together with the "Polish People's Party", as well as with the traditionally pro-government representation of the German-speaking minority, which received one seat, it turns out 235 deputies out of 460. For the first time since the formation of the so-called Third Polish Republic, the government has support in parliament.

On September 9, 2014, changes took place in the European Council: its head Herman Van Rompuy left and Donald Tusk was appointed in his place. The President of the European Council took up his new position on 1 December 2014. After that, Tusk served as acting prime minister until September 22, 2014, when Ewa Kopacz, the former speaker of the Polish parliament, was chosen to replace him.

Donald Tusk about Russia

To Russia as a whole is treated as it is now accepted in the European Union. He is a supporter of sanctionsagainst Russia, although he considers them ineffective. He advocates the creation of a European energy union to fight Russia's monopoly in this area, but this initiative has not yet been approved. Like many European politicians, Tusk believes that Russian troops are fighting in the Donbass and calls for decisive but reasonable opposition.

Eavesdropping scandal

Polish President Bronisław Komorowski has called on the government to resign after sensational revelations resulting from illegal tapping of conversations between various members of the Cabinet of Ministers. Tusk agreed to holding early elections, although he initially rejected the opposition's demands for his resignation. On June 25, 2014, he put the issue of confidence in the government to a vote in the Seimas. As a result, 237 out of 440 deputies voted for the government, 203 voted against.