Poland: Kosiniak-Kamysz Becomes Deputy PM and Head of the MoD

Based on Article 154, section 3 of the Constitution, Donald Tusk asked the Marshal of the Sejm (Parliament) Szymon Hołownia to approve a request on selection of the Council of Ministers. The leader of the PSL (Polish People’s Party) party was appointed the Minister of Defence.

Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz had been making numerous references to the matters of national defence and defence procurement. In his opinion, the agreements regarding the procurement of new equipment will need to undergo a review. Some of them, as he stated, may need to be terminated. Szymon Hołownia, the Marshal, has been making a series of similar statements.

“Of course verification, checking whether everything went as per standard, what else can be gained, can anything be renegotiated, can Poland gain more - all these things, yes, but in general, continuation in these two areas is needed, different than what our predecessors have been doing”, the head of PSL had stated before.

The Minister noted that the Territorial Defence Component turned out to be effective in recent years, and recommended that it should be subordinated to the Head of the Polish Ministry of Defence directly and become a part of the general command structure.

The Minister also made comments on the concept of the European Army, and declarations made by Radosław Sikorski (KO), on the European defence project leadership, should PiS (Law and Justice) step down. Kosiniak-Kamysz stressed that Poland has two relevant alliances to care about - the European Union, and NATO, and that both those alliances play a key role in ensuring national security. He noted that there is a necessity to make investments in the Polish defence potential within the framework of NATO and to establish close cooperation of national armies of the NATO member states in defensive actions undertaken by the alliance.

Władysław Marcin Kosiniak-Kamysz was born in 1981 in Cracow. He is a doctor by education, and a local and national politician, with a PhD degree. His political career began in 2000, in PSL. He was working as the General Secretary of the PSL’s Executive Committee and also became the Minister of Labor and Social Policy back in 2011. He has been the leader of PSL since 2015. He was an MP during the VIII, IX, and X terms of office, starting from 2015. In 2019 he was elected MP again, and he was running for presidency in 2020.