What was sold as one of Donald Tusk’s primary political victories upon taking office—the unblocking of billions of euros in EU funds—has been overshadowed by allegations of improper spending on luxury goods.
At the end of last week, the European Commission demanded urgent explanations from Warsaw following reports suggesting that part of the money earmarked for post-pandemic recovery may have ended up financing yachts, saunas, and other items unrelated to the plans approved by Brussels.
According to the Polish portal Onet, a map published on the National Recovery Plan (NRP) official website listed companies that had received EU subsidies. What seemed to be a simple exercise in transparency quickly turned into a scandal: social media users began pointing to examples of alleged irregularities, which media outlets and politicians across the ideological spectrum soon picked up. The expenditures detected include pleasure boats, solariums, furniture, and coffee machines.
Poland has been allocated nearly €60 billion from the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Fund, designed to reactivate European economies after the COVID-19 crisis. During the tenure of the previous conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government, these resources remained blocked by the European Commission, citing rule-of-law issues—effectively concealing what was, in reality, a punishment for ideological reasons. After Tusk and his allies came to power, Ursula von der Leyen lifted the veto, thus fulfilling a key campaign promise for the new liberal government.
One of the funded programmes earmarked €280 million for the hospitality sector, which had been severely hit by pandemic-related closures. A dedicated website allowed businesses to apply for aid. Still, the service has since disappeared, and according to complaints, some of the funds ended up being spent on purchases entirely unrelated to economic recovery. Tusk acknowledged the seriousness of the matter: “I will not accept any waste of NRP funds.”
The newly sworn-in President of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, also reacted strongly: “I do not want Polish people’s money spent on saunas or coffee machines. I want funding for Polish families.” The Warsaw Regional Prosecutor’s Office has launched preliminary investigations, and the head of the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development, Katarzyna Duber-Stachurska, has been dismissed.
From Brussels, European Commission spokesman Maciej Berestecki reminded that Poland “is obliged to act to clarify” the awarding of aid and warned that the Commission can intervene if fraud is detected or the national authorities fail to act. In such a case, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and the EU’s Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) would intervene.
