Warsaw is on track to win the budget portfolio in the new European Commission that many member states crave, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday, confirming earlier press reports.

Despite European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s call for each country to nominate two commissioner candidates, one man and one woman, the Tusk government (Civic Platform, EPP) was one of many to nominate only one male candidate. Poland chose Piotr Serafin, Tusk’s long-time right-hand man and deputy ambassador to the EU.

“It is no secret that Poland is seeking (…) the budget portfolio. We are on the right track. This position will allow us to more effectively enforce certain obvious security needs,” Tusk told a joint press conference in Rzeszów, where he participated alongside his Irish counterpart Simon Harris.

As an economist by training and trade, the budget portfolio would be a good fit for Serafin, who also served as Director for Transport, Telecommunications and Energy at the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU between 2020 and 2023.

In addition, Tusk’s close relationship with von der Leyen, demonstrated by the fact that – as her colleague in the conservative EPP group – he was one of the first EU leaders to endorse her re-election, means that Poland is likely to have its portfolio preference confirmed.

While von der Leyen stressed in a press briefing on Wednesday that geographical, political and gender balance were as important as candidates’ competencies, she admitted that there could be a situation where a male candidate would have better competencies than a female and suggested that she would not seek a replacement in that case. Euractiv understands that this may be the case for Serafin.

In nominating Serafin, Tusk made it clear that he wanted the budget portfolio. In the outgoing Commission, Poland has the agriculture portfolio held by Janusz Wojciechowski (PiS, ECR), but the current government has shown no interest in keeping it.

The budget portfolio is particularly attractive given the upcoming negotiations on the next multiannual financial framework, and as Poland will hold the EU presidency in the first half of 2025, having the budget commissioner would increase its influence on the process.

If Poland gets the budget portfolio, it would be the second time in the country’s 20 years of EU membership that it has been responsible for the area in the Commission. Janusz Lewandowski of Tusk’s Civic Platform (PO, EPP) was the budget commissioner in the second Barroso Commission.

(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | Euractiv.pl)

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