Donald Tusk will accept the resignations of four ministers on Friday and announce the names of their successors. According to a statement on the Chancellery of the Prime Minister's website, this will happen at the conference at 9.12. Convening events of this type for partial hours is not a common practice. However, the time “9.12” was already mentioned by the head of government.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced in a conversation with journalists that on Friday he would accept the resignations of four ministers, and then the names of their successors would also be announced. He emphasized that future ministers would start work immediately.
When asked by one of the journalists what time he would accept the ministers' resignations, he replied: – You are precise. At 9/12.
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Conference convened on December 9
On Thursday, the website of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister published information that on Friday morning at 9:12 a.m. the head of government will announce changes in the composition of the Council of Ministers. This announcement also appeared on the Government Information Center's profile on the X platform.
President Andrzej Duda will change the composition of the Council of Ministers on Monday at 10.30.
Reconstruction of the government
The reconstruction of the government announced by the Prime Minister is related to the fact that four current ministers will run in the elections to the European Parliament, which will be held in Poland on June 9. There are four ministers on the EP lists.
The current head of MAP, Borys Budka, will be number one on the KO list in the Silesian district, the head of the Ministry of Interior and Administration, Marcin Kierwiński, will open the list in the district covering Warsaw and eight poviats around Warsaw, and the Minister of Culture, Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, will start from first place in the district covering the Lesser Poland and Świętokrzyskie voivodeships. One of the ministers from PSL, Krzysztof Hetman, who heads the Ministry of Development and Technology, is also running in the European elections.
Who can replace ministers
Minister of Infrastructure Dariusz Klimczak (PSL) assessed that the most serious candidate to replace Hetman is Krzysztof Paszyk, currently the leader of the parliamentary PSL club. A likely candidate to replace Kierwiński as head of the Ministry of Interior and Administration is Tomasz Siemoniak, a PO politician, currently the coordinator of secret services – he is expected to keep this position.
Among the potential candidates for the Minister of Culture is Andrzej Wyrobiec, a politician from the Civic Platform, currently deputy minister at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. In this context, the Speaker of the Senate Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, the Deputy Speaker of the Sejm Monika Wielichowska and the head of the Sejm Foreign Affairs Committee Paweł Kowal are also mentioned.
Prime Minister Tusk, asked on Wednesday whether the size of the government would be smaller due to the reconstruction, replied “a little bit.” Now the government has over a hundred ministers and deputy ministers. Some of the deputy ministers – e.g. Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus (MKiDN), Krzysztof Śmiszek (MS), Andrzej Szejna (MSFA) from the Left – are also running in the elections to the European Parliament.
Main photo source: PAP/Radek Pietruszka