Look at him, he is smiling. Yes, Donald Tusk appears mild-mannered, but friends say the easy outward manner belies a steely ambition that took him to the leadership of his Civic Platform party and now the prime ministership of Poland. A carpenter's son from the Baltic port of Gdansk, the cradle of Poland's anti-communist uprising, can be now the new polish Zapatero, this time without leftist traces. As Solidarity splintered following the 1989 defeat of communism, Mr Tusk became a rightwing liberal and keen advocate of Europe. Mr Tusk entered the upper house in Warsaw in 1997 for the Freedom Union party and became a founder of the Civic Platform in 2001.
We saw his a soothing tone on Tuesday in his first extended comments since a sweeping victory in national elections, pledging to end political strife at home and to improve strained relations with Russia, Germany and the EU.
Ten days ago, the 50-year-old historian went head-to-head in a television duel with Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the wily prime minister. But Tusk routed his opponent calmly and systematically. The TV debate was the turning point in an extremely bruising election campaign. The neck-and-neck polls shifted to give the Platform a 10-point lead. Sunday's victory was revenge for his defeat at the hands of the Kaczynski twins in the past.
"He was tough, decisive and calm," said Tomasz Wolek, a former newspaper editor from Gdansk who has known Mr Tusk for decades. "Donald had a Kaczynski complex and he's finally freed himself of it. He allowed himself to be blackmailed and was put on the defensive. Now he's got tougher."Tusk, a keen amateur football player viewed in his youth as a promising striker, operated in the underground as an anti-communist student leader in Gdansk in the late 1970s before joining the Solidarity movement. After the communists imposed martial law in 1981, he worked on building sites. Both his parents had been forced into slave labour under the Nazi occupation of Poland.
Tusk campaigned on promises to build a more harmonious relationship with the EU and to pursue the economic opportunities presented by membership in the bloc, which Poland joined in 2004.
"The European Union is here — not somewhere in Brussels," Tusk said.
In the United States — which he called "our closest ally, our greatest friend" — Tusk said he would work to keep up the friendship while also establishing a more balanced partnership. Also Russia matters now. Amid already tense ties with Russia, Kaczynski's government has blocked negotiations for a new EU partnership agreement with Moscow due to a Russian embargo on Polish meat, which Russia said it imposed because of health concerns. Poland has also been critical of plans for an undersea pipeline to bring Russian natural gas to Europe, bypassing Poland and raising fears of a potential gas cutoff as well as the loss of transit revenue.
Can Europe smile too?
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