The agreement, signed on November 10, 2023, brought together the centrist Civic Coalition (KO), the agrarian Polish People’s Party (PSL), the center-right Poland 2050, and the New Left.
Donald Tusk became prime minister the following month. The deal also set a mid-term rotation in the lower-house leadership, with The New Left’s Włodzimierz Czarzasty due to replace Poland 2050’s Szymon Hołownia as the Speaker of the lower house on Thursday.
Coalition figures pointed to concrete steps in education and transport. Teachers and public-sector employees have received raises, the school curriculum was trimmed, and homework was scrapped, the PAP news agency said in an analysis piece.
New local rail connections expanded regional access, and nongovernmental organizations gained easier operating conditions, including a grant program for small rural groups.
“These parts of the coalition agreement are in motion,” said Agnieszka Buczyńska of Poland 2050, the government minister for civil society.
Accountability
A series of inquiries have advanced the coalition’s pledge to put the previous Law and Justice (PiS) government under scrutiny.
Two parliamentary investigative commissions, one into 2020 “envelope” postal voting plans and another into a “visa scandal,” have sent case files to prosecutors.
A third commission probing the Pegasus spyware affair is ongoing.
Lawmakers have approved a motion to bring Maciej Świrski, head of the National Broadcasting Council, before the State Tribunal, a constitutional accountability court.
Parliament also lifted immunity and authorized the arrest of former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro and his deputy Marcin Romanowski, although both decamped to Hungary.
Romanowski’s case was complicated by his immunity as a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Several headline reforms have stalled. Plans to reverse the Constitutional Tribunal’s restrictive 2020 abortion ruling did not advance, although the state began funding in-vitro fertilization.
No bill has emerged to overhaul public media. The Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) has not been dissolved. The church fund, a longstanding state mechanism financing certain clergy benefits, remains in place.
A promised reset of governance in state-owned companies has not moved forward.
Presidential vetoes
Presidential vetoes created a series of stumbling blocks. In 2024, conservative President Andrzej Duda sent judicial bills on the National Council of the Judiciary and the Constitutional Tribunal to the Constitutional Tribunal for review, and he raised objections to a criminal-code update that would add penalties for hate speech against sexual minorities.
His Eurosceptic successor, Karol Nawrocki, vetoed a wind-farm liberalization bill and blocked the creation of the Lower Oder Valley National Park.
The government nonetheless broke ground in late October on a nuclear power plant at Lubiatowo-Kopalino, presenting it as progress on the coalition’s energy and climate agenda.
Healthcare restructuring has been uneven. The government did not clear hospital debts, though it has lifted National Health Fund limits on hospital treatments.
Business-climate pledges delivered partial gains, such as removing health-insurance charges on sales of fixed assets, while overall Social Insurance Institution contributions rose for many entrepreneurs.
“On the business agenda, too little was delivered,” said Ryszard Petru of Poland 2050, who chairs the Sejm’s deregulation committee.
“We need to push through more over the next two years,” he added.
Science and culture funding remained tight despite a promise to strengthen budgets. The rules for evaluating research institutions have not changed, while a bill to provide social security for artists is in government work.
Broader decentralization goals have lagged, although municipalities received National Recovery Plan money and a higher share of tax revenues.
“Local governments have been strengthened, with more EU recovery funds and a bigger tax take,” said Jarosław Urbaniak of the Civic Coalition, who also argued that an unsympathetic president has constrained delivery.
Coalition negotiator Dariusz Wieczorek of the New Left said the partners had moved in each policy area set out in the agreement, and that voters would judge the pace and scope.
Poland 2050 lawmaker Wioleta Tomczak criticized the government’s dialogue with the health sector, saying she hoped the next six months would show more effective consultation.
The political calendar adds pressure. The Polish People’s Party holds a congress on November 15, where its leader, Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, seeks a renewed mandate. The New Left plans a December congress, with Czarzasty yet to say if he will run again.
Poland 2050 will pick a new leader in January after Hołownia’s resignation, and the Civic Coalition is expected to hold party-wide leadership elections the same month.
'Poland is destined for greatness': PM
In mid-October, Tusk conceded that his centrist coalition government had failed to deliver on some of its election promises, citing greater challenges than expected two years after the parliamentary elections that brought it to power.
"We haven’t achieved everything we promised,” Tusk said at the time during a meeting with voters in the central city of Piotrków Trybunalski.
"The coalition has turned out to be more difficult than I thought, and we didn’t win the presidential election. I take full political responsibility for that," he added.
The prime minister highlighted several government achievements, including lowering inflation, raising public-sector wages—"by 30 percent for teachers and 20 percent for civil servants"—and increasing funding for defense and healthcare.
He praised Poland’s modern expressways and highways and said rail would now become the main focus of infrastructure investment, aiming to make it “the most modern and fastest in Europe.”
He also noted that some of Europe’s largest offshore wind farms were being developed in the Baltic Sea.
“I believe Poland is destined for greatness, if we all build it together with full conviction that we were made for great things,” Tusk said.
(gs)
Source: PAP