WARSAW
Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party is taking aim at opposition leader Donald Tusk in a new campaign ad ahead of parliamentary elections on Oct. 15.
In the ad, PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski receives a phone call from a representative of the German Embassy in Warsaw about raising the retirement age in Poland.
His interlocutor wishes to connect with the German Chancellor and clarifies that the retirement age in Poland “should be the same as under Prime Minister Donald Tusk.”
“Please apologize to the Chancellor, but it will be the Poles who will decide on this matter in the referendum. There is no more Tusk and these things are over,” Kaczynski says, and then hangs up.
PiS has turned its attacks on Tusk, the leader of the opposition Civic Platform (PO) party and president of the European Council from 2014 to 2019, who was on good terms with Germany. He served as prime minister of Poland from 2007 to 2014.
“Tusk is the personification of evil in Poland. He is pure evil,” Kaczynski said last month.
Kaczynski claims Tusk wants to raise the retirement age and privatize major companies.
Warsaw has also been critical of what it sees as Germany’s foot-dragging over weapons supplies to Ukraine. It is also seeking €1.3 trillion ($1.4 trillion) in reparations from Germany for the Nazi occupation.
Poland’s preference for a federation of European Union nation states also collides with Berlin’s push for a deeper EU.
