Polish minister quits Tusk cabinet over mayor term limits

Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz resigned on Oct. 22 as Poland’s minister for funds and regional policy and as leader of the junior coalition party Poland 2050, saying she could not stay in Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government after the Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament, voted on mayoral term limits.

The bill, which would have abolished the two-term limit for mayors, was defeated 213 to 215, Notes from Poland reported. Fifteen coalition MPs voted with the right-wing opposition against it, and Poland 2050 split: six of its MPs voted for the bill, three against, three abstained and three did not vote.

The Polish People’s Party (PSL), another coalition partner, proposed scrapping the limits, which were introduced in 2018 to curb corruption and cronyism. Pełczyńska-Nałęcz, who is not an MP, said the coalition, including a significant portion of Poland 2050’s MPs, had sided against voters.

“I am leaving Donald Tusk’s government because values are more important to me than positions,” she said, according to Notes from Poland. She said she was leaving the party “in the hands of its founder,” Szymon Hołownia, and hoped he would remember what values he came to power in the name of.

Hołownia said at a press conference that Poland 2050 will stay in the coalition, but that the government would lack a parliamentary majority without the party, Notes from Poland reported.

Tusk, speaking to reporters while travelling in Asia, said cooperation with her “has not been the easiest for a long time.” He said he did not think the departure would affect the coalition’s work. “My intuition tells me that this is her individual decision,” Tusk said.

In remarks reported by Polsat News on Oct. 26, Tusk was sharper. “I said I will not publicly criticize her. She left. A cross on the road,” he said, using a Polish idiom that roughly means good riddance. He denied forcing her out of the party: “I didn’t throw her out of her party,” he said.

Polsat News also reported that Tusk acknowledged problems with settling money from Poland’s National Recovery Plan, known as KPO, in her ministry. “I cannot risk a single euro right now. It’s a pity about that money,” Tusk said. He did not specify what went wrong. Her ministry had negotiated six revisions of the plan with the European Commission, Polsat News reported.

Tusk did not name a successor. He said he has two candidates, that one will take the post, and that the person is non-partisan.

The timing is awkward for the coalition. Parliamentary elections are due in about a year, and only parties with at least five per cent of the national vote enter parliament. Notes from Poland reported that Poland 2050 polls around one per cent and PSL around three per cent. The two ran together as the Third Way in 2023 but split in 2025, though both remain in government. PSL said it will now push for two-term limits for MPs, arguing national and local politicians should face the same rules.

The right-wing opposition hopes to draw PSL out of the government, Notes from Poland reported, citing a recent report that U.S. President Donald Trump suggested this to the PSL leader at the opposition’s request. That claim has not been independently confirmed by Canada News Media.

For Canadians, the stakes are mostly about stability. Poland is a NATO ally on Ukraine’s border and one of the countries hosting the EU’s response to the war, and it is the ancestral home of one of Canada’s larger diaspora communities. Our coverage of how Europe is lining up behind Kyiv includes the E5 defence ministers’ pledge in Paris, and of the EU’s own funding fights, the decision to release frozen money to Hungary.

Via Notes from Poland and Polsat News. This is a developing story.

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