Mateusz Morawiecki discusses Tusk's relationship with EU
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When Rishi Sunak flies out to Warsaw for a security summit with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk he should not automatically assume he is meeting an ally.
The two will both be buoyed by the decision over the weekend by Congress to support $61billion (￡50billion) of funding for Ukraine from the US but there are ongoing concerns about how the EU is approaching the war.
Sunak, who was a Brexiteer, should not easily forget how Tusk as the former President of the European Council did his best to undermine and humiliate Britain as it negotiated its way out of the EU. He proved back then that he was not a friend of the UK and, worse still, his first loyalty was to Brussels, even ahead of his own country.
This has continued since his coalition won a tightly contested election in Poland late last year which has seen Tusk trigger a series of pro-EU and pro-Germany changes which many feel have harmed his country.
He ended the Polish veto on the EU Commission getting a raft of new powers over member states, he had opposition MPs arrested, he sacked judges, he sacked TV station bosses. But he has also been accused of acting on behalf of neighbouring Germany by cancelling major projects in Poland such as a massive transport hub which would have set Poland up as a competitor.
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READ MORE: Donald Tusk is 'taking political prisoners' with EU backed regime in Poland
Rishi Sunak should raise concerns over the security consequences of Tusk's purge (Image: Getty)
However, the big question that Sunak needs to ask Tusk is what he is doing about Poland’s energy security.
In February, Tusk’s government dismissed the chief executive of Orlen Daniel Obajtek, the 49 percent state-owned energy company, which is now leading to serious questions about the Polish Prime Minister’s commitment to the war on Vladimir Putin.
The issue comes from the fact that largely via Orlen Poland, unlike most of the EU, was completely protected from the impact of losing Russian oil and gas through the embargoes imposed after the war. It was energy self-reliant and this allowed Poland as a neighbour of Ukraine’s to act as a bulwark against Putin.
But along with Obajtek the senior executives of Orlen have all gone and been replaced by someone connected to the Tusk government.
The reasons are varied and have come out in briefings against the old team. They have claimed Orlen was scammed out of $400million (￡324million) of oil that was never delivered. They have claimed Orlen was making a loss (although these figures have been revised to a smaller loss from $400m to $100m).
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Orlen had become a major player in the European energy market (Image: Getty)
Probably the biggest motive for the sackings though is that the management team was appointed by the former Law and Justice Party (PES) government which was more sceptical about the EU, and this is part of an ongoing purge to cleanse Polish institutions of their influence.
Despite the claims of losses, Orlen’s revenue for 2023 is listed at $84.4billion (￡68.4billion) produced by the now dismissed regime which had transformed it into a major player in the energy market in Europe from barely breaking even in 2020.
So, allegations of business incompetency over the former management do not exactly hold water.
There are questions over the business dealings of Tusk’s new Minister of Culture Bart？omiej Sienkiewicz who had been in the oil and gas industry. Allegations were made about him in connection to the purchase of Russian crude oil and a report was drawn up. The suggestion is that a successful Orlen may have caused him problems.
Sources have also raised concerns that the Tusk strategy is part of a longer term plan to sell off Orlen to Germany which has had its own energy problems as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war.
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But the real concern for the UK and the rest of Europe is that whatever the political motivations behind the activities at Orlen is where this leaves the efforts to take on Russia. This is the big question Sunak needs to raise.
As one Polish source put it: “If Poland’s energy security is undermined for political reasons and it suddenly could become dependent on Russian oil and gas in the future then that will have repercussions on the efforts to defeat Putin and protect the European continent.”
Sunak should get himself briefed on this and not be blindsided by any post-Brexit charm Tusk intends to deploy.
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