{"id":123350,"date":"2025-08-14T17:05:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T15:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=123350"},"modified":"2025-08-14T08:25:55","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T06:25:55","slug":"15-05-113","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=123350","title":{"rendered":"Covid cash for yachts, swingers\u2019 club fuels Polish opposition attack on Tusk"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Donald Tusk, the row piles fresh pressure onto an already crowded agenda. | Wojtek Radwanski\/AFP via Getty Images<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Covid cash for yachts, swingers\u2019 club fuels Polish opposition attack on Tusk<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

Bartosz Brzezi\u0144ski<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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WARSAW \u2014\u00a0Donald Tusk\u2019s coalition is scrambling after an ill-judged transparency drive revealed that some of Poland\u2019s long-awaited EU Covid recovery cash went to eyebrow-raising projects, including a swingers’ club, a pizzeria with a solarium and a chain of vodka bars.<\/span><\/p>\n

The uproar, which erupted after the government published\u00a0interactive online maps<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>of grant recipients in a bid to showcase openness, has handed the far-right Law and Justice (PiS) party an irresistible target.<\/span><\/p>\n

Clicking through the data revealed that the 1.2 billion z\u0142oty (\u20ac282.3 million) program meant to revive hotels, restaurants and cultural venues battered by the pandemic had also bankrolled yachts, a pizzeria that added tanning beds, and, in one widely shared case, a business in southern Poland registered at the same address as a sex club.<\/span><\/p>\n

PiS, clawing at every opportunity to regain momentum since losing power in 2023, has wasted no time in framing the row as proof of Tusk-era cronyism and waste.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the biggest scandals since 1989,\u201d thundered PiS MEP Tobiasz Boche\u0144ski, staging a stunt on Saturday\u00a0<\/strong>outside the prime minister\u2019s office\u00a0with a mock plaque for the fictional \u201cMinistry of Herring and Vodka\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a nod to one grant recipient. The party has promised parliamentary inspections and prosecutor referrals to trace every \u201clink, dependency and decision-making chain.<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n

From flagship to flak magnet<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The 1.2 billion z\u0142oty HoReCa scheme is part of the 254 billion z\u0142oty (\u20ac59.8 billion) Poland is due from the EU\u2019s National Recovery Plan. Brussels had\u00a0frozen the funds during PiS rule<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0due to rule-of-law concerns, and unlocking them was a central promise of Tusk’s 2023 election campaign. The HoReCa cash was designed to help small and medium-sized tourism and hospitality businesses diversify so they could survive another crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, the map swiftly transformed the program from a showcase into a political headache.<\/span><\/p>\n

One restaurant owner in \u0141\u00f3d\u017a, whose grant was flagged online for financing two yachts, defended the purchase as a legitimate way to diversify his business in case of future lockdowns.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nThe HoReCa program was meant to help hotels, restaurants and cultural venues battered by the pandemic. | Pawel Supernak\/EPA<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t get this money for vacations,\u201d Grzegorz Urbaniak\u00a0told the portal Money.pl<\/a>,<\/strong><\/span> arguing that boats could be rented to tourists when restaurants were closed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The owner of the business registered at the same address as a swingers\u2019 club\u00a0said his grant had paid for metalworking machinery<\/a>,<\/strong><\/span> not adult entertainment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Officials stress that many of the eyebrow-raising purchases met program rules negotiated by the PiS government in 2021, which allowed spending on \u201cdiversification\u201d projects such as tourist rentals or eco-friendly attractions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tusk has\u00a0promised \u201czero tolerance\u201d<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0for abuse of EU funds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe put too much effort into unlocking these billions to allow anyone to waste them,\u201d Tusk\u00a0said on X<\/a>\u00a0on Saturday, vowing that \u201canyone who made mistakes will face consequences, regardless of their position or party affiliation.\u201d Prosecutors have opened preliminary inquiries, and the funds ministry says an audit will deliver initial results by late September.<\/span><\/p>\n

Coalition strain<\/strong><\/h4>\n

For Tusk, the row piles fresh pressure onto an already crowded agenda. The ministry overseeing the funds is run by Polska 2050, a coalition partner\u00a0led by parliament speaker Szymon Ho\u0142ownia<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. His 31-seat party is crucial to Tusk\u2019s majority but has had its own PR headaches, including a summer scandal\u00a0over a late-night meeting with PiS leader Jaros\u0142aw Kaczy\u0144ski<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

For PiS, the flap has become a way to question Tusk\u2019s ability to manage his coalition and to highlight tensions between the prime minister and Ho\u0142ownia. The controversy has drawn attention to the role of\u00a0Polska 2050<\/a>\u00a0in overseeing the program and given PiS an opportunity to criticize both leaders at once.<\/span><\/p>\n

The spending row comes only weeks after Tusk\u00a0reshuffled his Cabinet in a bid to regain momentum<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0following a presidential election loss, a shake-up that underscored both the fragility of his coalition and the difficulty of keeping it aligned.<\/span><\/p>\n

The presidential election\u00a0saw nationalist Karol Nawrocki defeat Tusk’s preferred candidate<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, Warsaw Mayor Rafa\u0142 Trzaskowski, a result that dealt a major blow to the government\u2019s reform agenda and is\u00a0expected to make passing legislation far more difficult<\/a>.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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For Donald Tusk, the row piles fresh pressure onto an already crowded agenda. | Wojtek Radwanski\/AFP via Getty Images . Covid cash for yachts, swingers\u2019 club fuels Polish opposition attack on Tusk Bartosz Brzezi\u0144ski WARSAW \u2014\u00a0Donald Tusk\u2019s coalition is scrambling after an ill-judged transparency drive revealed that some of Poland\u2019s long-awaited EU Covid recovery cash […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[33,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123350"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=123350"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123373,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123350\/revisions\/123373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=123350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=123350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=123350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}