"I'm leaving Donald Tusk's government because values are more important to me than positions," Pełczyńska-Nałęcz wrote on X.
She announced her decision after Polish lawmakers voted earlier in the day to reject a bill that would have abolished a two-term limit for mayors, municipal heads and local council leaders, thereby retaining the current two-term limit.
"Two-term limits for local government have been maintained," Pełczyńska-Nałęcz wrote. She criticised the ruling coalition, saying that "a significant part of Poland 2050 lawmakers sided with political interests rather than voters."
"This is not the coalition's first such decision, but it is a fundamentally important one," she wrote.
Pełczyńska-Nałęcz, whose government role included overseeing EU funds, said that during her nearly three years in government she had done as much as she could, citing the removal of housing subsidies for developers, greater transparency in housing prices and reforms to what she described as an unfair tax system.
She also said Poland had fully invested its EU-funded post-pandemic recovery programme.
Referring to her departure from the leadership of Poland 2050, she said she was leaving the party "in the hands of its founder," referring to deputy lower-house Speaker Szymon Hołownia.
"I wish him to remember the values in whose name he sought power," she added.
Pełczyńska-Nałęcz became minister when Tusk's government took office in December 2023, with the backing of Hołownia's Poland 2050 group.
She was elected leader of Poland 2050 earlier this year, defeating Climate and Environment Minister Paulina Hennig-Kloska in an internal contest.
She succeeded Hołownia, who had led the party since its founding and served as lower-house Speaker from 2023 to 2025. He is now one of parliament's deputy Speakers.
After Pełczyńska-Nałęcz's victory, Poland 2050's parliamentary representation split into two groups. A 15-member Poland 2050 parliamentary caucus is led by Hołownia, while another 15-member group, the Centre, is headed by Hennig-Kloska and includes lawmakers who left Poland 2050 with her.
Hennig-Kloska told private broadcaster TVN24 on Thursday that Pełczyńska-Nałęcz's decision "looks like a move ahead of the elections to pretend to be in opposition."
She called the move "populist" and "very bad and harmful," adding that Pełczyńska-Nałęcz "apparently decided that the government and the coalition were not for her."
Before joining Poland 2050, Pełczyńska-Nałęcz worked as a researcher and diplomat, specialising in Eastern Europe. She was associated with the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW), a Warsaw-based think tank, and served as a deputy foreign minister from 2012 to 2014 and as Poland's ambassador to Russia from 2014 to 2016.
In 2020, she joined Hołownia's presidential campaign. From 2020 to 2023, she was director of the Strategies 2050 Institute, a think tank affiliated with the Poland 2050 movement, and later served as the party's campaign chief for the 2023 parliamentary election.
Poland 2050 ran in that election in an alliance with the agrarian Polish People's Party (PSL). The alliance, known as the Third Way, won 14.4 percent of the vote.
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Source: IAR/PAP, TVP Info, TVN24