Tusk wants ‘traitor’ in Polish cabinet

Newly elected Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has started filling cabinet posts for his two-party coalition government following his election victory over Jarosław Kaczynski on 21 October.

Tusk wants to appoint as foreign minister Radek Sikorski, who served as defence minister for Kaczynski’s Justice and Law (PiS) party in the previous coalition government, but who later switched to Tusk’s Civic Platform (PO) party. Sikorski, a former fellow at the free market American Enterprise Institute, has been attacked as a "traitor" by PiS politicians. He resigned over a row involving the head of the security services. But Polish President Lech Kaczynski has said he would not block Sikorski’s appointment if Tusk wanted to make him minister.

Tusk has also declared that he wants university professor Jacek Rostowski as finance minister. Rostowski, a close associate of former finance minister and central bank governor Leslek Balzerowicz, wants Poland to join the euro soon. Tusk said that Poland could join the single currency in 2012 or 2013 but needed to make an assessment first on the impact on Polish wages and prices.

Civic Platform is in coalition with the Polish People’s Party (PSL), formerly the Polish Peasants’ Party. PSL President Waldemar Pavlak, a former prime minister, is expected to become deputy prime minister and economy minister while PSL politicians are tipped to head the ministries for agriculture and possibly the environment or labour.

• Polish Liberal MEP and former foreign minister Bronisław Geremek said on Tuesday that Germany could help achieve a major improvement in its relations with Poland if it gave a clear message to the new government on sensitive issues including the planned Nord Stream pipeline under the Baltic sea to bring Russian gas to Germany. "If there was a declaration of intent by both governments on how to provide energy security it would be very important for Poland," Geremek said.

Newly elected Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has started filling cabinet posts for his two-party coalition government following his election victory over Jarosław Kaczynski on 21 October.