Donald Tusk

Date of Birth: 22.04.1957

Donald Franciszek Tusk - a Polish politician, Chairman of the European Council (2014-2019), Prime Minister of Poland (2007-2014), co-founder and chairman of the Civic Platform party, former deputy chairman of the Senate. He was the deputy chairman of the Freedom Union party and participated in the Solidarity movement in the 1980s. Since December 11, 2023, he has been the Prime Minister of Poland.

Place of Birth. Education. He was born in Gdańsk to a Kashubian family - one of the indigenous peoples of the region. He graduated from the historical faculty of the University of Gdańsk in the late 1970s. He speaks English and German.

Career. Donald Tusk founded the first independent trade union cell, Solidarity, at the university, which fought against the ruling communist regime (the first president of Poland after communism, Lech Wałęsa, was its leader).

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During martial law, he could not find a job in his field. He had to do heavy physical work - such as 'industrial alpinism' (work on high buildings), including at the Gdańsk shipyard. At the same time, he edited underground publications in Poland.

In the late 1980s-1990s, Tusk founded and chaired the Liberal Democratic Congress, with whose list he was elected to parliament in 1991. In the next parliamentary elections, his party lost, but Donald Tusk and the first democratic Prime Minister of Poland, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, joined forces, which led to the founding of the Freedom Union - a party that enters the ruling coalition. In 2000, Tusk, along with several well-known right-wing politicians, founded the liberal Civic Platform. It became the largest opposition party against the post-communist majority (one of its leaders was the second Polish president Aleksander Kwaśniewski), and Donald Tusk himself became the Deputy Speaker of the Sejm.

His considerable popularity gained until 2005 did not help him withstand the fight against the Kaczyński brothers. His political force lost then to Jarosław Kaczyński's conservative Law and Justice party in the parliamentary elections, and the chairman of the Civic Platform personally lost to Lech Kaczyński in the fight for the presidency. The subsequent rapid collapse of the parties created in the coalition led to the announcement of early parliamentary elections, where on October 21, 2007, Tusk and his Civic Platform emerged as winners, granting him the right to lead the government of Poland. On November 9, 2007, he was appointed Prime Minister.

Besides politics, which takes up a significant part of Donald Tusk's time, he sits on the editorial boards of several well-known Polish magazines and has written several books on the history of Gdańsk.

On August 30, 2014, he was elected Chairman of the European Council.

On September 9, 2014, Donald Tusk submitted his resignation as Prime Minister to the President of the country. The request is related to Tusk's upcoming functions as Chairman of the European Council starting in December. The resignation of the Prime Minister due to Polish law leads to the resignation of the entire government. The new Polish government must be formed by September 25.

On December 1, 2014, Tusk officially assumed his functions as Chairman of the European Council. He succeeded Herman Van Rompuy, the former Prime Minister of Belgium.

On March 9, 2017, Donald Tusk was re-elected as Chairman of the European Council. The re-election took place with the support of European politicians and despite the resistance from Poland - all 27 countries voted in favor. The Prime Minister of Poland, Beata Szydło, wrote a letter to EU leaders asking to support the new Polish candidate, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, and not to re-elect Tusk. She justified her request by saying that Saryusz-Wolski could reform the EU, while Tusk had 'exceeded his powers in sharp internal contradictions and supported undemocratic actions of the opposition.'

On November 20, 2019 Donald Tusk was elected as the new Chairman of the European People's Party.

Starting December 1, 2019, Tusk held the position of Chairman of the European Council following Charles Michel.

On December 11, 2023, the Polish Sejm elected Donald Tusk as the Prime Minister of the country.

Family. The politician is married, the couple raised a son and a daughter.

Hobbies. Football is among Donald Tusk's hobbies. He is even the captain of an amateur club.

11.12.2023