President Bronislaw Komorowski accepted the candidacy of Speaker Ewa Kopacz as Poland's new prime minister on Friday at Warsaw's Belvedere Palace.
The new cabinet is set to be appointed on 22 September, it has been revealed, prior to Komorowski's departure for the United States.
Friday's meeting followed Komorowski's acceptance of outgoing prime minister Donald Tusk's resignation on Thursday afternoon, with the latter set to take on the presidency of the European Council on 1 December.
Tusk's cabinet was dissolved yesterday, a development that had been expected regardless of his EU election, owing to a wire-tapping scandal that rocked the government over the summer.
“The new government will be different, because the prime minister is different,” Kopacz said on Friday as she left the Belvedere, responding to questions from journalists.
By law, Kopacz has 14 days to put forward her new cabinet.
She declined to give journalists any hints about her choices on Friday, saying that President Komorowski would be the first person to be informed about the line-up.
Ewa Kopacz has been a member of the centre-right Civic Platform party since 2001. She served as minister of health from 2007-2011, during Tusk's first term as prime minister. She was then made Speaker of the lower house of parliament.
An opinion poll has indicated that Tusk's successor is facing an uphill struggle. After seven years of a coalition government, only 27 percent of respondents in an IBRiS poll said they were positive about Kopacz's leadership. Meanwhile, 39 percent positively assessed Tusk positively. (nh) Source: PAP, TVN
Speaker Ewa Kopacz (L) at the Belvedere Palace with President Bronislaw Komorowski (R) on Friday. Photo: PAP/Tomasz Gzell
Ewa Malcher
