The leadership board of Poland 2050 decided to expel Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz from the party, citing among other things actions to the party’s detriment, Szymon Hołownia, chair of the Poland 2050 parliamentary caucus, announced Saturday. Michał Gramatyka, a lawmaker in the caucus, also confirmed the decision.
Pełczyńska-Nałęcz, the minister of funds and regional policy and leader of Poland 2050, announced her departure from the government on Thursday on the social media platform X. She wrote then that she was leaving the party “in the hands of its founder, who left but nevertheless came back.” She was referring to Szymon Hołownia, deputy speaker of the Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament, and the party’s former leader.
On Saturday, Hołownia, the chair of the Poland 2050 parliamentary caucus, said in a post on X that the party’s board had decided to remove Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz from the party.
“This is very difficult for our community, but, given the known facts, unfortunately unavoidable. The Poland 2050 board has decided to remove Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz from the party for ‘acting to the detriment of the party and against the resolutions of the party’s statutory bodies,'” Hołownia wrote.
Poland 2050 lawmaker and Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs Michał Gramatyka also confirmed the information.
“The party board decided by vote that Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz’s membership has ended, because she acted to the party’s detriment. Resigning from the government and resigning as party chair were moves that were not agreed with anyone and that went against the party’s resolutions, in which we reaffirmed the existence of the Oct. 15 coalition. We concluded that these are actions that damage the party’s image and its good name,” Gramatyka told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
He said that “by a vote, Ms. Pełczyńska-Nałęcz’s membership was terminated.”
Asked whether the decision was unanimous, he replied that “it is not possible to share that information.”
Asked whether the decision can be appealed, Gramatyka said: “Certainly, yes. Definitely to the party court. After that, I don’t know the appeals path, but I think it is described fairly clearly in the bylaws.”
On Friday, after Pełczyńska-Nałęcz’s post, Jan Szyszko, also a member of Poland 2050, resigned as deputy minister of funds and regional policy.
Asked whether Szyszko had also been removed from the party, Gramatyka acknowledged that he “does not know, but if it were up to him, he believes Szyszko should be removed.”
Minister of Culture and National Heritage Marta Cienkowska, who was in Poznań on Saturday, said in an earlier conversation with PAP about the situation in the party after Pełczyńska-Nałęcz left the government that Poland 2050 would still function very well.
Cienkowska explained that the party chair’s duties have for now been taken over by the first deputy chair, lawmaker Ewa Schädler. “The entire board, apart from the chair (Pełczyńska-Nałęcz – PAP), continues to function,” she said.
Pełczyńska-Nałęcz announced Thursday evening that she had decided to leave the government. She announced it in a post on X after the Sejm, while not passing the abolition of the two-term limit in local governments proposed by the Polish People’s Party (PSL), saw many lawmakers from the ruling coalition vote in favor of abolishing the rule. They included six of the voting lawmakers from her own Poland 2050, while three abstained.
Pełczyńska-Nałęcz wrote on X, among other things, that the two-term limit was preserved, but “despite the votes of the Oct. 15 Coalition.” “The coalition, including, unfortunately, a considerable share of Poland 2050 lawmakers, stood against the people and for political deals. This is not the first such decision by the coalition, but it is fundamentally important,” Pełczyńska-Nałęcz wrote, adding that she was “leaving Donald Tusk’s government because values matter more to her than posts.”
Referring to her leadership of Poland 2050, Pełczyńska-Nałęcz wrote then that she was leaving the party “in the hands of its founder, who left but nevertheless came back.” “I wish him to remember in the name of which values he went into politics to seek power,” she added.
Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz took over as party chair after Hołownia resigned. After the January election, she was chosen as the party’s chair. In mid-February this year, the party split: Climate Minister Paulina Hennig-Kloska and a group of more than a dozen lawmakers left the party and formed a new parliamentary caucus, Centrum.
Pełczyńska-Nałęcz did not run for the Sejm and was not a lawmaker. As head of the Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy, she was tasked with ensuring the proper use of money from the National Recovery Plan (KPO). Her ministry negotiated six revisions of the plan with the European Commission, which made it possible to ease the so-called milestones, meaning the tasks, reforms and investments that Poland committed to carry out in exchange for money from the EU Recovery Fund.
On Sept. 30 this year, not long before her resignation, Pełczyńska-Nałęcz said that the entire pool of funds provided for in the KPO would be invested, and that investments already completed account for 1.5% of GDP growth. (PAP)
