Donald Tusk

His grandfather, Józef Tusk (1907–1987), was a railway official who around 1941–1942 was imprisoned at the Neuengamme concentration camp; in 1944, as a former citizen of the Free City of Danzig, he was forcibly conscripted by German authorities into the Wehrmacht.

After four months, he deserted and joined the Polish Armed Forces in the West.

Tusk has described the city of his youth as "a typical frontier town" with "many borders ... between ethnicities."

This, together with his Kashubian ethnic ancestry and multilingual family, meant that he grew up with an awareness that "nothing is simple in life or in history," which informed his adult political view that it is "best to be immune to every kind of orthodoxy, of ideology and most importantly, nationalism."

He has described his young life under communism as "so hopeless" due to the boredom and monotony, with "no hope for anything to change."

His young self was a "typical hooligan" who often got into fights – "we would roam the streets, you know, cruising for a bruising."

Tusk credits his interest in politics to watching clashes between striking workers and riot police when he was a teenager.

His father, Donald Tusk senior (1929–1972), was a carpenter whilst his mother, Ewa (née Dawidowska) Tusk (1934–2009), was a nurse.

His maternal

grandmother's language was Danzig German.

Donald Franciszek Tusk (born 22 April 1957) is a Polish politician and historian who has served as the prime minister of Poland since 2023.

Tusk has been involved in Polish politics since the late 1980s, having founded multiple political parties and held elected office almost continuously since 1991.

He was one of the co-founders of the free market–oriented Liberal Democratic Congress party (KLD).

He enrolled at the University of Gdańsk to study history, and graduated in 1980.

While studying, he was active in the Student Committee of Solidarity, a group that opposed Poland's communist rule at the time.

He entered the Sejm in 1991, but lost his seat in 1993.

Tusk was one of the founders of the Liberal Democratic Congress (Kongres Liberalno-Demokratyczny KLD), which in the 1991 elections won 37 seats in the lower house of parliament.

The KLD later merged with the Democratic Union (UD) to become the Freedom Union (UW).

In 1994, the KLD merged with the Democratic Union to form the Freedom Union.

In 1997, Tusk was elected to the Senate, and became its deputy marshal.

Tusk became deputy chairman of the new party, and was elected to the Senate in the next election in 1997.

He co-founded the Civic Platform (PO) party in 2001 and has served as its long-time leader, first from 2003 to 2014 and again since 2021.

In 2001, he co-founded another centre-right liberal conservative party, the PO, and was again elected to the Sejm, becoming its deputy marshal.

In 2001, he co-founded Civic Platform, and became deputy speaker in parliament after the party won seats in the year's election.

In the shade of the upcoming expiration of President Aleksander Kwaśniewski's second term and his inability to stand for a third term, Tusk and Lech Kaczyński were the leading candidates for the presidential elections.

Although both leading candidates came from the centre-right, and their two parties had planned to form a coalition government following the parliamentary elections on 25 September, there were important differences between Tusk and Kaczyński.

Tusk wanted to enforce a separation of church and state, favoured rapid European integration and supported a free-market economy.

Kaczyński was very socially conservative, a soft Eurosceptic, and supported state intervention.

Tusk stood unsuccessfully for President of Poland in the 2005 election, but went on to lead the PO to victory at the 2007 parliamentary election, and was appointed Prime Minister.

Tusk previously served as Prime Minister from 2007 to 2014, and as President of the European Council from 2014 to 2019.

He led the PO to a second victory in the 2011 election, becoming the first Polish prime minister to be re-elected since the fall of communism in 1989.

In 2014, he left Polish politics to accept appointment as president of the European Council, having been the longest-serving prime minister of the Third Polish Republic and the third longest-serving prime minister of Poland overall, after Józef Cyrankiewicz and Piotr Jaroszewicz.

He was also the president of the European People's Party (EPP) from 2019 to 2022.

He served as President of the European Council until 2019; although initially remaining in Brussels, he later returned to Polish politics in 2021, becoming leader of the Civic Platform for a second time.

In the 2023 election, his Civic Coalition won 157 seats in the Sejm to become the second-largest bloc in the chamber.

The other opposition parties won enough seats between them to form a coalition majority with the Civic Coalition, ending eight years of government by the Law and Justice party.

Following Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki's failure to secure a vote of confidence on 11 December, Tusk was elected by the Sejm to become Prime Minister for a third time.

His cabinet was sworn in on 13 December.

Tusk was born in Gdańsk in northern Poland.

He has Polish, German (maternal grandmother) and Kashubian (Donald Tusk describes himself as a Pole, Kashubian and European) ancestry.