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00:00Let's begin. Our correspondent at Gulliver, Craig, who's been watching your developments for us in Warsaw.
00:04Gulliver, I'm very good to you. What is Navrotsky's primary aim now that he's president?
00:12Well, I mean, it may well be to simply block everything that the government tries to do.
00:17I think it's perhaps important to remind viewers that behind Carol Navrotsky stands Yaroslav Kaczynski,
00:23who is the leader of the Law and Justice Party, currently not of the ruling Law and Justice Party,
00:28because it was ousted in the parliamentary elections of 2023, won by the coalition led by Donald Tusk.
00:35So what Kaczynski really wants is to get back into power with his Law and Justice Party.
00:41And he may well think that the best way to do that is to make the government unable to function,
00:46unable to pass any legislation by having Carol Navrotsky simply veto everything.
00:51Now, Donald Tusk has just spoken for the first time since his ally, Raphael Traskowski's election defeat,
01:00with Yaroslav Kaczynski already calling for a technical government, for a change of government.
01:05He says, well, fine, let's have a vote of confidence.
01:08He says that he is confident that his coalition will win a vote of confidence in Parliament.
01:12And he says that it's important to show Poland and the world that the coalition stands strong.
01:17Donald Tusk says that he has no intention of taking a step back
01:21and that an emergency plan for this situation has already been worked out within the party.
01:28He said, of course, it's not possible to give all details
01:31and it's not possible to predict exactly what Carol Navrotsky's stance will be.
01:36But reading between the lines of his speech, it kind of seems to me
01:39that their idea is to pass pieces of legislation that are among the things that everyone can agree on,
01:47that are kind of in line with the nationalists' agenda,
01:51bringing back more industry under the control of Polish businesses, for example,
01:55to pass pieces of legislation that it's hard, would appear absurd for Carol Navrotsky to veto
02:02and to kind of break the idea that he will simply veto everything.
02:05But no one is denying that it's going to be extremely hard for Donald Tusk's coalition going forward.
02:11Clearly, he's decided to adopt a fighting stance right now anyway.
02:15OK, so Tusk calling for that vote of confidence, as you say.
02:19And as you just outlined, it would be perhaps silly for Navrotsky to go against policies
02:22that may be designed to create jobs for Polish people and to expand that sector
02:27and obviously sort of go for the greater prosperity of the country, in inverted commas.
02:31That's one of the issues.
02:32What about support for Ukraine, Gulliver?
02:34Because clearly that is something that has, by extension, been mentioned too by Navrotsky,
02:39talking about putting Polish people first rather than Ukrainian refugees.
02:45The majority of Polish people absolutely support continuing to help Ukraine militarily
02:51and to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia.
02:54I say the majority, but there is a minority that is not inconsiderable that is not in favour of that.
03:00But remember, 6.2% of Poles voted for the avowedly pro-Russian candidate, Dzergorsh Brown,
03:06which is incredible in a country like Poland with the history that it has with Russia.
03:10So even support for Ukraine in terms of military support is perhaps faltering a little bit here.
03:16But I don't think we can expect Karol Navrotsky to want to stop Poland from helping out
03:21in the way that it does with weapons and, of course,
03:23with the logistics hub for foreign weapons coming in at the Polish airport of Zeshov in the south-east of the country.
03:29He is ruling out having Ukraine join NATO under his watch, though.
03:33That was a promise he had to make to the far-right candidate, Swamyu Mensen,
03:37in his bid to win over his voters, which he did with astounding success.
03:42That's 90% of Swamyu Mensen's voters went for Karol Navrotsky in the second round.
03:48And he's also ruled out sending Polish troops to Ukraine,
03:51but that's actually something that Rafael Traskowski was also against.
03:55And then where he's much more anti-Ukrainian is in terms of the situation of Polish refugees in Poland.
04:01They've been very much stigmatised lately, particularly by the right-wing political campaign,
04:05but not only actually by the right, although, in fact, the vast majority of them work and pay taxes
04:11and contribute to Polish economic growth.
04:13They've been stigmatised among those of them who are benefiting from social payments,
04:18and Karol Navrotsky would, I think, like to cut those.
04:21But he's not the government, actually.
04:23I mean, he could veto a government plan to increase them, for example,
04:26or he could propose a plan to cut them, but he doesn't have the power to do that just on his own.
04:31Where does he stand regarding Donald Trump, Gulliver?
04:34I understand that Navrotsky is very much a Trump man, or fan, at least.
04:39Yeah, he's a fan of Donald Trump, and he won't have anywhere else to turn,
04:42because he's not going to get on very well with the European leaders,
04:45who I think very much wanted Rafael Traskowski, seen as the pro-European of the two candidates,
04:51to win this election.
04:53Karol Navrotsky is more Euroscaptive.
04:56I mean, he's not against being in the European Union, but he wants less Europe.
05:00He wants less European intervention in Polish affairs.
05:03And he represents a party that was roundly condemned by the European Union
05:09during its eight years in office for democratic backsliding.
05:12So he really has to count on his alliance with Donald Trump.
05:16And that may lead him to face some difficult decisions,
05:20because Donald Trump is not keen, of course, on spending more U.S. money on defence in Europe.
05:26He wants the Europeans to spend more money on their own defence.
05:29Poland is doing that.
05:30But in...
05:32Emotions running high, as you hear.
05:36So, I mean, yeah, Karol Navrotsky may find himself not as much in agreement with Donald Trump
05:43about European security as he might think he is at the moment.
05:45But on the face of things, he's a fan, and I think he thought that that would also help him get elected.
05:49And people talk a lot about Russian meddling in European elections.
05:53But here, the Trump administration absolutely explicitly endorsed Karol Navrotsky.
05:59I said the European leaders favoured Raphael Traskoski,
06:01and then came straight out saying who they wanted to win the election.
06:04That's not normally the done thing.
06:06The Trump administration did that.
06:08Governor Craig, as always, thank you very much indeed.
06:10Governor Craig reporting from Warsaw.
06:12Governor Craig, as always, thank you very much for joining us today.