Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz has described the Polish government she recently left as a cabinet of "stagnation," speaking on Polsat News' "Gość Wydarzeń" programme on Friday, 23 October 2026. Her remarks came in response to Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who had written on the X platform that she should have telephoned him about her departure. According to PolsatNews.pl, the former minister declined to trade barbs with the premier and instead used the interview to set out her reasons for going.
Why it matters
The exchange puts on the record a rift inside Poland's governing coalition at a moment when it is already under strain. Pełczyńska-Nałęcz did not only criticise the manner of her exit; she questioned whether the government still has a development strategy and argued that it has drifted from the values she associates with it. Coming from a minister who had been in charge of preparing that strategy, the criticism carries weight beyond a personal falling-out. PolsatNews.pl reports that she framed the decision as firm but respectful toward the colleagues she worked with, and said she was unconcerned by any sniping directed at her.
A reply to Tusk's social media post
Tusk's message that she "should have called" drew a measured response. Pełczyńska-Nałęcz said she would not engage in that kind of back-and-forth or in small jibes. She then turned the premier's suggestion into a rhetorical device, imagining what such a call would have sounded like: a report that the government had just failed to push through a bill ending the two-term limit for local government, that the Constitutional Tribunal had become a political body, and that Poland's development strategy had been blocked with no growth plan in its place.
She told the programme that she could have stayed in the cabinet and remained part of an administration that, in her view, had become one of stagnation, shortly after it had unsuccessfully tried to force through what she called a highly political piece of legislation. PolsatNews.pl identifies that bill as the one that would have abolished the two-term cap on local authorities.
Strategy, values and the charge of drift
Asked by host Marek Tejchman whether Poland lacks a development plan, Pełczyńska-Nałęcz said the country ought to have a new development strategy and that she had prepared one as a government priority. Pressed on whether the cabinet was ineffective and devoid of ideas, she gave a more nuanced answer: it had accomplished a great deal through genuinely efficient management, she said, but it now has no development strategy in place and is, in her assessment, losing sight of the values that should serve as its compass.
She was equally critical of the way Polish politics is organised. Pełczyńska-Nałęcz said she knows what kind of political formation Poland needs, and that in her view it should have been the Third Way. She described the need for a grouping that sets aside sectarian divisions between camp A and camp B, which she likened to barbed wire, and argued that under that logic nothing — including the truth — counts any longer except which side a person belongs to.
The country, she added, is arguing over secondary matters. She called the Constitutional Tribunal a secondary issue today and said the priority should be far more consequential questions: the pension system, fair taxation and the demographic crisis.
Tejchman also asked whether she was prepared to cross the dividing line that has long split Polish politics. Pełczyńska-Nałęcz rejected the premise, saying the line itself is the wrong one and that she does not grant legitimacy to those who draw it at the expense of Poles. She characterised it as a war between black and white with scorched earth in between.
What she said about her own future
On her political plans, Pełczyńska-Nałęcz said she is not afraid of what lies ahead. She said that if she decides to pursue one course she will do so, and if she chooses another she will say so. Asked when she would announce a decision, she replied that she would do it at an appropriate moment, as she sees fit.
For now, she said, her decision is not to serve in a government that is drifting and that puts its name to things she disagrees with. She described that choice as one she was stating clearly and firmly while retaining respect for everyone she had worked with, and said she was not bothered by whatever malicious comments might follow.
Her departure has left the premier facing questions about who will take over the portfolio. PolsatNews.pl reports that Tusk said he had two candidates in mind, and that he had expected her to call.
What to watch next: whether Tusk names a successor to the portfolio and whether Pełczyńska-Nałęcz follows through on her promise to announce her political plans.
