Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he has two candidates for the post of new minister of funds and regional policy, and both are women. He said he will announce the name after he returns to Poland. He said he had thought that before Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz left the government, she would “at least call and say she had gotten bored with the job.”
Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz, the minister of funds and regional policy and leader of Polska 2050, announced her departure from the government on the platform X on Thursday evening. “I am leaving Donald Tusk’s government because values matter more to me than cushy posts,” she wrote. She added that she is leaving the party “in the hands of its founder, who left but nevertheless came back.” She was referring to Szymon Hołownia, a deputy speaker of the Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament, and the party’s former leader.
The prime minister, who is visiting India, was asked about Pełczyńska-Nałęcz’s decision at a news conference on Friday. “I thought that before she left, she would at least call and say she had gotten bored with the job,” the head of government replied.
He added that he “will not be spiteful,” but said cooperation with Pełczyńska-Nałęcz “had not been the easiest for quite some time.”
“I try to bring out the very best in people when I work with them. But I have the impression that she (Pełczyńska-Nałęcz – PAP) is politically very lost. What’s happened has happened, but I don’t think it will have any bearing on the coalition’s further work, to be honest,” the prime minister stressed.
He added that he “does not want to belittle in any way” Pełczyńska-Nałęcz’s political significance, but “his intuition tells him” that this is the minister’s individual decision and that, as far as the coalition itself is concerned, “probably nothing will change.”
Asked who will take over the ministry from Pełczyńska-Nałęcz, the prime minister replied: “I have two candidates, two great ones. Both are women, very competent, and I will feel very secure,” he said.
He added, however, that he does not want to discuss the matter by phone. “After I return (from India), you will learn the name of the woman I’ve chosen,” the head of government announced.
In her Thursday post on X about her resignation, Pełczyńska-Nałęcz pointed to the results of Thursday’s Sejm vote on a bill that would abolish the two-term limit in local governments. “The two-term limit in local governments has been preserved. That is what the Sejm decided today. We won! (…) But it happened despite the votes of K15X. The coalition, including, unfortunately, a significant share of Polska 2050 lawmakers, stood against the people and for political cliques. This is not the first such decision by the coalition, but it is a fundamentally important one,” she wrote.
Pełczyńska-Nałęcz became minister of funds and regional policy when Donald Tusk’s government was formed in December 2023. She joined the government with the backing of Szymon Hołownia’s Polska 2050. Earlier this year, she defeated Climate and Environment Minister Paulina Hennig-Kloska in an internal party election for leader. She replaced the party’s founder, Szymon Hołownia, who was Sejm speaker from 2023 to 2025 and is now a deputy speaker.
After Pełczyńska-Nałęcz’s victory in February, Polska 2050’s parliamentary representation split into two camps. One is the 15-member Polska 2050 caucus, led by Hołownia (Pełczyńska-Nałęcz is not a member of parliament). The other is the 15-member Centrum caucus, led by Paulina Hennig-Kloska, which includes lawmakers who left Polska 2050 along with her.
Szymon Hołownia responded to the minister’s decision in a post on X. “We learned of Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz’s decision from the media. The surprising resignation by the chair from the trust of voters and the responsibility entrusted to her at a very difficult moment by people (including me), after less than a third of a term, would be a serious challenge for any organization. It is one for us as well,” he acknowledged.
Hołownia declared that the Polska 2050 parliamentary caucus remains in the governing coalition. “The party’s new leadership will now be decided, in accordance with its bylaws, by its members in a general vote,” he said. (PAP)
