Leaked audio exposed Donald Tusk, when he was European Council president, commenting on his party’s candidate list ahead of Poland’s 2019 parliamentary election — despite his EU role requiring political neutrality.
In a recording of a private call, Tusk expressed support for certain candidates and sided with a politician who complained that party leaders had blocked his Senate bid.
The recording was published by media outlets affiliated with the opposition nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which argue it shows Tusk was actively involved in domestic politics at the time. PiS ran Poland at the time of the recording.
Tusk resigned as Poland’s prime minister in 2014 to become European Council president, but returned to the Civic Coalition party in 2021 and became prime minister again in 2023.
Tusk’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment. The European Council didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Civic Coalition politicians allege, however, that the leaked conversation was recorded illegally by the previous government.
Tactical complaints
Right-wing broadcaster TV Republika published a recording of a 2019 phone conversation between Roman Giertych — Tusk’s former lawyer and now a Civic Coalition lawmaker — and Tusk himself.
Giertych complained that the then-leader of Civic Coalition, Grzegorz Schetyna, was blocking his Senate bid by offering him to run in hard-to-win districts. Tusk sympathized, saying that it was a mistake not to let Giertych run in Warsaw.
Giertych also blamed Schetyna for Civic Coalition’s parliamentary campaign going “in the wrong direction” and said he would become the “face of defeat.” Tusk replied that he “would not forget that.”
Civic Coalition lost the 2019 parliamentary election, and Schetyna did not run for reelection for party leadership in 2020.
In the same phone call, Giertych also said he had suggested that the party promote Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, to which Tusk responded that it was a very good idea. Kidawa-Błońska ended up being the party’s candidate for prime minister in the 2019 election.
Furious response
Giertych alleges the conversation was recorded “as part of an illegal operation” through Israel’s Pegasus spyware, which the previous government allegedly used to spy on political opponents.
“The recording of conversations between a lawyer and his clients, the failure to destroy them, the removal of copies of the conversations from the [Central Anti-Corruption Bureau], their transfer to the media, and the publication of these conversations are very serious crimes,” Giertych wrote on X. “Those guilty of all these crimes will be punished.”
The current Civic Coalition-led coalition government has launched a probe into whether PiS officials misused Pegasus software to spy on their political opponents.
Tusk has not commented on the recordings as of Tuesday afternoon.
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