Place of Birth. Education. Born in Gdansk in a family of Kashubians - one of the indigenous peoples of the region. In the late 1970s, he graduated from the Faculty of History at the University of Gdansk. Speaks English and German.
Career. Donald Tusk organized the first cell of the independent Solidarity trade union at the university, which opposed the ruling communist regime (the leader was the first president of post-communist Poland, Lech Walesa).
During martial law, he could not find a job in his specialty. I had to do hard physical labor - for example, "industrial mountaineering" (work at high-rise facilities), in particular - at the Gdansk shipyard. At the same time, he edited the printed editions of the Polish underground.
At the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, Tusk created and headed the Liberal Democratic Congress, on the list of which he entered parliament in 1991. In the next parliamentary race, his party loses, but Donald Tusk and Poland's first democratic prime minister, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, join forces, resulting in the Union of Freedom, a party that entered the government coalition. In 2000, Tusk, along with several well-known right-wing politicians, created the center-right, liberal Civic Platform. It became the largest opposition party in relation to the post-communist majority (one of the leaders is the second Polish president Alexander Kwasniewski), and D. Tusk himself took the post of vice speaker of the Seimas.
Accumulated by 2005, Tusk's fairly decent popularity, as Rossiyskaya Gazeta noted, did not help him in the fight against the Kaczynski brothers. His political force then lost to the conservative Law and Justice party of Yaroslav Kaczynski in the parliamentary elections, and personally the leader of the Civic Platform lost to Lech Kaczynski in the race for the presidency. The ensuing quarrel between the members of the created coalition led to the announcement of early parliamentary elections, from which Tusk emerged victorious on October 21, 2007 with his Civic Platform, thereby gaining the right to head the government of Poland. Appointed Prime Minister on November 9, 2007.
In addition to politics, which occupies most of Donald Tusk's time, in recent years he has managed to participate in the editorial boards of several well-known Polish magazines and write several books about the history of Gdansk.
On August 30, 2014, he was elected President of the European Council.
On September 9, 2014, Donald Tusk handed over to the president of the country a letter of resignation from the post of head of government. The request is due to the fact that from December Tusk will serve as President of the European Council. The resignation of the Prime Minister under Polish law entails the resignation of the entire Cabinet of Ministers. The new Polish government must be formed by 25 September.
On December 1, 2014, Tusk officially took over as President of the European Council. He replaced the former Prime Minister of Belgium Herman Van Rompuy.
9th of March 2017 Donald Tusk was re-elected to office President of the European Council. The re-election took place with the support of European politicians and the resistance of Poland - all 27 countries voted FOR. Prime Minister of Poland Beata Shidlo wrote a letter to EU leaders asking them to support the new candidate from Poland Jacek Sariush-Wolski and a request not to re-elect Tusk. She argued her requests by the fact that Sariush-Volsky would be able to reform the EU, and Tusk "exceeded his authority in acute internal disputes and supported the anti-democratic actions of the opposition."
November 20, 2019 Donald Tusk was elected as the new leader European People's Party.
Since December 1, 2019 as President of the Tusk European Council replaced by Charles Michel.
Views and assessments. The leader of the Civic Platform is a staunch liberal marketer, a supporter of social reforms. In the foreign policy direction, he plans to normalize relations with Germany as soon as possible, which have noticeably cooled recently, and with Russia, which, with the participation of the Kaczynski brothers, have deteriorated even more.
At the same time, Donald Tusk is in favor of more restrained relations with Washington (in particular, on the issue of deploying missile defense facilities in Poland). "If I win the elections, I will do my best to emphasize the European character of Poland. Strengthening our positions in the European Union remains key for us. Our contacts with the United States will be of a partnership nature," he said during the election campaign.
The arrival of Donald Tusk as prime minister will be positive for Ukraine, Marcin Wojciechowski, columnist for the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, believes. The Kaczynski brothers, due to their intransigence and unpredictability in international relations, have earned a very dubious reputation in Europe. Therefore, it cannot be said with certainty that their support for Ukraine in Brussels was beneficial to Kiev, Marcin Wojciechowski believes. But under the head of the Tuske government, most likely, "Poland's image in Europe will be much better, and it will be better able to help Ukraine integrate into European structures," the observer is sure.
Family, hobby. The politician is married, the couple raised a son and a daughter.
Among Donald Tusk's hobbies is football. He even leads the amateur team.
04/21/2021