Tusk demands that Europe not left out of Ukraine talks, Poland’s lackluster AI aspirations

Polish saying of the week:
Lepszy rydz niż nic
“Better oilseed than nothing”

Meaning: Better something than nothing, like just a teeny bit of AI investment rather than none at all. (A “rydz” is also a delicious and rare mushroom and it was a revelation to the writers of this newsletter to find out that the popular saying is not about a milk cap but about an ancient seed oil that peasants used to put on bread in the absence of animal fat. Which makes a lot more sense).

FEBRUARY 13, 2025 Highlights With Tusk, Von der Leyen in an acquiescent mood. What wasn’t said during the European Commission’s visit to Gdańsk on Feb. 7 was the best indication of a continuing close relationship between the head of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and PM Donald Tusk. At the joint press conference, the host once again underlined that Poland would not implement the new migration pact in a way that would introduce additional quotas for immigrants in Poland. In response, Von der Leyen refrained from the obvious pushback that the pact does not force any country to relocate migrants. Besides Hungary (and Denmark, which has a treaty opt-out on migration issues), Poland is the only EU country that has not submitted its national plan for implementing the pact, which goes far beyond relocation issues, to the Commission. The deadline passed in December, but neither in Brussels nor in Gdańsk did we hear a word of criticism on this issue.

The bigger picture | Von der Leyen also tried very hard to work closely with former PM Mateusz Morawiecki during his time in office, but that relationship always remained frosty. With Tusk, one of the leaders of the European People's Party (EPP), von der Leyen's European parent party, her efforts are on another level. At the beginning of 2024, she gave in to Tusk and quickly unfroze the funds that had been suspended on the grounds of threats to the rule of law in Poland, without even waiting for the country’s attempts to change the laws inherited from the previous government. Overall, von der Leyen likes to maintain a frictionless, although not particularly cordial, rapport with the Polish PM. Time will tell how their relations – and power balance – within the EPP will develop after the entry of another powerful player after the German election on Feb. 23, the likely new Chancellor Friedrich Merz

Poland wants to join the AI race but is short on cash. As global leaders meet in Paris for the AI Action Summit, the Polish government is working to get its act together regarding the shiny new technology. Policy-wise, last year was tough – to the point where scientists openly protested the government’s incompetence. After some political turmoil, a new AI strategy is set to be announced in March. Poland has launched a €250 million public AI fund and PM Donald Tusk just pledged €35 million for a new supercomputer and €50 million for the first Polish AI factory. Still, these numbers pale in comparison to the upwards of €100 billion that Emmanuel Macron wants to mobilize for AI investment in France.

The bigger picture | Most of the existing Polish AI initiatives are open-source or not-for-profit. A group of enthusiasts is developing a reasonably capable 11B-parameter LLM named “Bielik” (based on the French Mistral-7B, it is available on Hugging Face, a popular AI model playground). NASK, a public institution that deals with various digital matters, is working on PLLuM (Polish Large Language Model), a range of LLMs up to 70B parameters based on Meta’s LLaMA. A limited version may soon be available in a government app. Interestingly, the Polish presidency has worked with ElevenLabs, an American company founded by two Poles and a global player in AI audio applications, to dub the Presidency’s press conferences with AI-generated Polish, English, and French voices that are meant to resemble the original voice of the speaker.

As the Baltic countries plug into Europe, Poland celebrates. It took almost two decades of discussions and planning, but Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia finally joined the EU electricity grid on Feb. 9. Since the collapse of the USSR, the Baltics remained connected to the Russian power network, with no synchronization with CESA (Continental Europe Synchronous Area). Now, through a connection with Poland, they have “plugged off Russia and plugged into Europe,” as Ursula von der Leyen neatly put it. President Andrzej Duda was present at the official ceremony in Lithuania and declared the event a historic moment.

The bigger picture | Traditionally, Poland has strongly supported the development of the European energy union. Now, we are a step closer to a common EU grid, and the celebrations are certainly justified. Still, for countries that were supposedly all too conscious of the Russian threat, it seems a little curious to only connect their power grids three years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. After all, it wasn’t all that expensive to do so. Perhaps everyone needs an upgrade in strategic thinking.

In Brief Europe reminds the US that it, too, can tariff away. "Be assertive while trying to de-escalate the situation," was the message from the FAC/Trade Council teleconference on Feb. 12, where EU ministers discussed how to respond to new US tariffs on steel and aluminium due in March. When Donald Trump imposed tariffs on these goods in 2018, the EU shot back with a political and economic double punch, imposing its own tariffs on products made in Republican-voting states, such as bourbon whiskey, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, and jeans. FAC/Trade meant to show EU unity and remind of its retaliatory powers, but also to signal the will for a quick trade deal by March. Europeans wonder whether the US is serious about making them spend 5% of their GDP on defence Military expenditures, along with the war in Ukraine, were the main topics of the NATO defence ministers' meeting in Brussels on Feb. 13, where US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the US could no longer be the “primary guarantor of security in Europe”. President Trump recently floated the idea of 5% of GDP for defence, but many Europeans are hoping for a far smaller requirement (“north of 3%” says Mark Rutte, NATO secretary general). But they don't know when and how the US will formulate the formal demand, which is to be rubber-stamped at the NATO summit in The Hague in June, a few days before the EU summit on defence spending. Will the EU budget turn into a kind of recovery fund? In a paper published on Feb. 12, the European Commission proposed that after 2027 payments from the standard EU budget should be linked not only to investments (as at present) but also to reforms negotiated with EU countries (as in the Recovery Fund). The question of the role of regional authorities in defining the investment and reform programmes remains open. The Commission will publish its draft multiannual budget (for 2028-34) this July. The Commission’s legislative schedule looks light during the Polish presidency. On Feb. 11, the European Commission adopted its work programme for 2025, with only a few legislative proposals to be presented during the span of the Polish presidency. The commission will propose how to strengthen the supply of essential medicines, and present three series of “omnibus” proposals aimed at simplifying EU legislation (the first in February, the other two in the second quarter). It will also propose new rules on the deportation of migrants and an EU Space Act. Finance ministers get to grill the Commission. The EU's deficit and debt rules (SGP) are not formally on the agenda of the Ecofin Council on Feb. 18, but Ursula von der Leyen injected them into the debate when she told the EU summit on Feb. 3 that the European Commission would seek additional 'flexibility' in the SGP to allow for increased defence spending. Neither EU leaders nor their ambassadors have yet been told what exactly von der Leyen has in mind. We will see if ministers in ECOFIN find out. Noted All we need is peace. A JUST PEACE. Ukraine, Europe and the United States should work on this together. TOGETHER. PM Donald Tusk on X after news broke of a phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin on the Ukraine “peace deal,” indicating a scenario long feared by Europe: its exclusion from talks on the war in Ukraine. Plug, baby, plug. Emmanuel Macron at the AI Summit in Paris. Alluding to Donald Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” motto, the French president expressed his desire for an abundance of electricity to power all the energy-hungry AI chips. The view from Poland Rafał Brzoska – Poland's Elon Musk, perhaps? At a conference on government economic policy, held at the Warsaw stock exchange on Feb. 10, PM Tusk made an unexpected move. During his speech, he pointed to Polish billionaire Rafał Brzoska, who was sitting in the front row, and publicly asked if he would take on the task of forming a team to deregulate the business environment in Poland. He then asked if Brzoska could… start tomorrow. Brzoska accepted. The CEO of InPost, a delivery company expanding its operations in several European countries, has been recently very active in Polish public life. Now, he’s about to chair the Polish equivalent of DOGE. Polityka Insight has more information on what he’s been up to: READ HERE. Bonus Could Poland lead the way? Piotr Buras and Michał Matlak, co-authors of the paper "A New Leader for Europe? Shifting Paradigms in Poland's EU Policy" (Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, EUI), reflect on the expectations placed on Poland to fill the current "leadership gap" in the EU. However, in assuming this leadership role, Poland, as Buras and Matlak argue, is not guided by a comprehensive and ambitious vision of Europe. While Poland has abandoned its scepticism towards EU defence initiatives (and has become their main advocate), there are unresolved Polish strategic dilemmas regarding decarbonisation, competitiveness, and costs of future EU enlargement. What to watch next week Feb. 14 Coreper II meeting in Brussels.

Feb. 14-16 Munich Security Conference. Foreign Affairs Minister Radosław Sikorski and Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski will attend.

Feb. 17-18 The informal meeting of EU Ministers for European Affairs in Warsaw. Kaja Kallas, EU High Representative and Commission's Vice-President, will attend.

Feb. 17 Eurogroup meeting in Brussels.

Feb. 17 Single Market Forum (SIMFO) in Kraków. Stéphane Séjourné, Executive Vice-President Commissioner for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy, responsible for Industry, SME and Single Market will attend.

Feb. 18 ECOFIN Council in Brussels.

Feb. 19 European Commission will present “A Vision for Agriculture and Food”.

Feb. 19 Coreper II and Coreper I meetings in Brussels.

Feb. 19 High-level conference on the Critical Medicines Act organized by Poland’s Ministry of Health in Brussels.

Today's newsletter was curated by:
Authors: Tomasz Bielecki, Tomasz Sawczuk.
Editor: Hanna Kozłowska
Graphic design: Karolina Tomaszewska, Małgorzata Gryniewicz
Front-end development: Maciej Kurczewski
Project management and supervision: Joanna Bekker, Maciej Michalik and Marcin Bąba.

Photos: Chancellery of the Prime Minister, Forum, iStock, www.gov.pl, Shutterstock.

About Polityka Insight:
POLITYKA INSIGHT is a source of knowledge about Polish and European politics and economy for business leaders, political decision-makers, and diplomats.

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