Polish government plans commission to investigate if Russia influenced energy policies of Tusk administration

Poland’s ruling party has announced plans to establish a special commission to investigate the energy policies pursued by the previous government, and in particular any Russian influence on it. That government was led by Civic Platform (PO), which is now the largest opposition party.

The commission would be empowered to issue ten-year bans on officials from taking up positions that involve spending public funds and from receiving security clearance.

“A commission to verify Russian influence on internal security in Poland is needed not only to clarify the past but also to get rid of Russian leftovers once and for all,” said Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, announcing the plans alongside Law and Justice (PiS) chairman Jaroslaw Kaczyński.

“We must be aware of how it came to be that unfavourable contracts were signed, which led to dependence on Russia and importing more raw materials from it,” added Morawiecki. “These contracts were signed in bloody ink.”

“This matter has become the subject of controversy and it would be good if all the issues related to it…were clarified,” added Kaczyński.

PiS has long accused PO of being too friendly towards Russia during its time in power from 2007 to 2015, including by leaving Poland reliant on Russian energy. PO has denied this, and notes that imports of coal from Russia increased after PiS came to power.

Last month, PO’s leader Donald Tusk – who served as prime minister from 2007 to 2014 – called for an investigation into secret recordings that helped bring down his government and which were produced by a businessman involved in coal trading who had alleged ties to Russia.

Kaczyński said that PiS’s planned commission would be different from normal parliamentary commissions, which do not require new legislation. It would be given greater powers and would consist of experts from outside parliament.

The body would be modelled on the so-called verification commission established by PiS in 2017 to investigate irregularities in historical property restitution cases in Warsaw, which was tasked with undoing the legal consequences of decisions concerning real estate issued in violation of the law.

PiS now proposes that its new commission investigating energy policy would have the power to overturn “decisions made as a result of Russian influence”, as well as to ban officials from receiving security clearance and taking positions involving the spending of public funds for up to ten years.

Yesterday, a similar call for an investigation into energy policy under the previous government was issued by United Poland (Solidarna Polska), PiS’s junior coalition partner. They want Tusk to be brought before the State Tribunal, the body empowered to punish the highest officials of state.

“Donald Tusk as prime minister pursued a ruthlessly pro-Russian, pro-Putin policy,” said Janusz Kowalski, a leading United Poland figure and deputy agriculture minister, speaking in front of PO headquarters. “The list of Donald Tusk’s gifts to Vladimir Putin and to the Kremlin is very long.”

Kowalski accused the former prime minister of, among other things, stopping construction of a pipeline bringing Norwegian gas to Poland – which the current government recently completed – and of trying to extend Poland’s gas contract with Gazprom until 2037.

Tusk also “blocked the construction of nuclear power”, Kowalski added. Poland’s nuclear power programme was adopted in 2014, under Tusk’s government, but the company tasked with building Poland’s first power plant was only selected last month, after PiS pushed forward with its own nuclear plans.

“Donald Tusk is the author of Poland’s loss of energy sovereignty,” added another United Poland politician, deputy climate minister Jacek Ozdoba.

He argued that “Tusk as head of the European Council was unable to stop Nord Stream 2” – a new Russian pipeline intended to bring gas to Germany – and “was also unable to stop the [EU’s] rampant, ideological climate policy”.

In 2017, Tusk publicly declared that Nord Stream 2 “is not in the interests of Europe” and “leaves Ukraine at the mercy of Russia”. Last year, he said that the pipeline was “a mistake resulting from selfish German interests” and “is against the interests of the EU as a whole, not to mention Poland and Ukraine”.

PO figures have strongly rejected PiS’s characterisation of their party’s time in power, and accuse PiS of pursuing policies and alliances that suit the Kremlin.

“Let me remind you that PiS has been in power for seven years. It is PiS which is responsible for Poland’s economic condition, for energy security. The situation we face today is the result of the actions or inaction of the Law and Justice party,” PO deputy leader Bartosz Arłukowicz told news service Onet.

“Serious people who know politics know very well that the Polish government, knowing that there was a threat of war in Ukraine, flirted politically with Putin supporters,” he added, referring to the friendly relationship PiS has cultivated with the likes of Marine Le Pen and Matteo Salvini.

“We did not meet Marine Le Pen, the government did. We did not hold meetings of pro-Putin people, those in power did,” Arłukowicz added. “We did not drastically increase coal imports from Russia, the ruling Law and Justice government did.”

Main image credit: M. Śmiarowski/KPRM (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.