The China Mail - Trzaskowski: pro-EU polyglot eyeing Polish presidency

USD -
AED 3.672902
AFN 69.589337
ALL 86.196303
AMD 383.859677
ANG 1.789679
AOA 917.499003
ARS 1184.254303
AUD 1.546934
AWG 1.80125
AZN 1.694587
BAM 1.716751
BBD 2.020004
BDT 122.248895
BGN 1.719075
BHD 0.376942
BIF 2978.161263
BMD 1
BND 1.289088
BOB 6.91329
BRL 5.634397
BSD 1.000478
BTN 85.714411
BWP 13.42977
BYN 3.274157
BYR 19600
BZD 2.009647
CAD 1.372465
CDF 2865.000411
CHF 0.823703
CLF 0.024493
CLP 939.889814
CNY 7.204302
CNH 7.190605
COP 4126.73
CRC 509.280187
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 96.783962
CZK 21.88202
DJF 177.719882
DKK 6.557399
DOP 59.074211
DZD 131.742973
EGP 49.6724
ERN 15
ETB 136.603394
EUR 0.87913
FJD 2.253301
FKP 0.738134
GBP 0.73949
GEL 2.740121
GGP 0.738134
GHS 10.234759
GIP 0.738134
GMD 71.999878
GNF 8671.189952
GTQ 7.683564
GYD 209.312226
HKD 7.84522
HNL 26.067264
HRK 6.6213
HTG 130.971556
HUF 354.816026
IDR 16338.7
ILS 3.52005
IMP 0.738134
INR 85.710498
IQD 1310.60483
IRR 42125.000185
ISK 127.120222
JEP 0.738134
JMD 159.588148
JOD 0.708976
JPY 143.876503
KES 129.249843
KGS 87.450242
KHR 4012.253568
KMF 434.492751
KPW 899.938458
KRW 1377.349776
KWD 0.30675
KYD 0.833699
KZT 512.413814
LAK 21608.858421
LBP 89641.915111
LKR 299.478195
LRD 199.594474
LSL 17.918047
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 5.44659
MAD 9.199853
MDL 17.207661
MGA 4546.831043
MKD 54.05916
MMK 2099.400036
MNT 3577.427298
MOP 8.084845
MRU 39.548122
MUR 45.430453
MVR 15.46004
MWK 1734.817929
MXN 19.261498
MYR 4.245012
MZN 63.910064
NAD 17.919148
NGN 1582.710265
NIO 36.813209
NOK 10.146435
NPR 137.144011
NZD 1.666486
OMR 0.384499
PAB 1.000478
PEN 3.622248
PGK 4.110455
PHP 55.705988
PKR 283.16743
PLN 3.76045
PYG 7993.890691
QAR 3.647886
RON 4.445597
RSD 103.032985
RUB 78.977411
RWF 1415.568
SAR 3.750807
SBD 8.350767
SCR 14.728869
SDG 600.499678
SEK 9.62136
SGD 1.289195
SHP 0.785843
SLE 22.719686
SLL 20969.500214
SOS 571.77717
SRD 37.147504
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.753697
SYP 13001.814997
SZL 17.910828
THB 32.6365
TJS 9.904631
TMT 3.505
TND 2.978113
TOP 2.342097
TRY 39.131602
TTD 6.788647
TWD 29.999587
TZS 2689.999828
UAH 41.553336
UGX 3643.641183
UYU 41.710188
UZS 12840.453265
VES 94.846525
VND 26055
VUV 120.837102
WST 2.761673
XAF 575.774626
XAG 0.028977
XAU 0.000298
XCD 2.70255
XDR 0.712934
XOF 575.759464
XPF 104.682446
YER 243.85015
ZAR 17.875799
ZMK 9001.202368
ZMW 26.862292
ZWL 321.999592
  • CMSD

    0.0939

    22.16

    +0.42%

  • CMSC

    0.0500

    22.12

    +0.23%

  • NGG

    -0.6000

    71.33

    -0.84%

  • BTI

    0.9500

    46.34

    +2.05%

  • GSK

    -1.1950

    40.46

    -2.95%

  • RIO

    -0.7300

    58.85

    -1.24%

  • RBGPF

    -1.5000

    67.5

    -2.22%

  • SCS

    0.3300

    10.52

    +3.14%

  • RYCEF

    0.1550

    12.035

    +1.29%

  • RELX

    -0.5200

    54.06

    -0.96%

  • BP

    -0.0050

    29.56

    -0.02%

  • JRI

    0.0440

    12.96

    +0.34%

  • BCC

    2.5000

    87.6

    +2.85%

  • BCE

    -0.3400

    21.94

    -1.55%

  • VOD

    -0.1000

    10.3

    -0.97%

  • AZN

    -0.1100

    71.82

    -0.15%

Trzaskowski: pro-EU polyglot eyeing Polish presidency
Trzaskowski: pro-EU polyglot eyeing Polish presidency / Photo: © AFP

Trzaskowski: pro-EU polyglot eyeing Polish presidency

Centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, running neck-and-neck with his nationalist rival ahead of Poland's presidential runoff, is an avowed Europhile pledging to relax abortion laws and protect LGBTQ rights.

Text size:

Trzaskowski narrowly won the first round of voting on May 18, polling 31 percent against 30 percent for Karol Nawrocki, a historian backed by the conservative opposition.

"I promise you that I will be a president who unites, who is ready to talk to everyone," Trzaskowski promised a crowd of supporters as he rallied for support a week before the runoff.

A former deputy foreign minister, the 53-year-old is also the son of a jazz pioneer and great-grandson of the man who created Poland's first secondary schools for girls.

Trzaskowski is backed by the governing Civic Coalition party of Prime Minister Donald Tusk and will face off against Nawrocki, the Law and Justice candidate.

Trzaskowski narrowly lost his first presidential bid in 2020 to the conservative Andrzej Duda, who backs Nawrocki.

- Early start -

Trzaskowski comes from an intellectual Warsaw family.

His father Andrzej was a famous pianist during the 1950s, when jazz was considered the music of the "enemy" under the Iron Curtain.

Trzaskowski himself started out in politics in a seismic year for the former Soviet bloc -- 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down.

A teenager at the time, he quit school and worked as a volunteer campaigning during the first free elections in Poland, which marked the end of the communist era.

He graduated from the University of Warsaw, where he later earned a doctorate with a thesis on EU reform.

He has also studied in Oxford and Paris, and at the College of Europe outside Warsaw.

He speaks English, French, Italian, Russian and Spanish and worked for a time as an English teacher.

As a Francophile, he has even earned the nickname "Bonjour", or hello in French -- a jab from critics who view Trzaskowski as elitist.

In 2000, he worked on Poland's accession to the European Union, then became an adviser to the Civic Platform delegation in the European Parliament.

He became an EU lawmaker in 2009, and in 2013 joined an earlier government led by Tusk, who went on to become president of the European Council.

Trzaskowski first served as technology minister and then deputy foreign minister.

As a member of the Polish parliament between 2015 and 2018, he was elected vice president of the European People's Party in 2017.

Trzaskowski was elected mayor of Warsaw in 2018 and re-elected in 2024, but critics say he has failed to do enough while in office.

- 'Absurd' -

Trzaskowski, who is married with two children, has vowed to campaign for women's rights and legalise abortion in the predominantly Catholic country, which has a near-total ban on the procedure.

In March, on International Women's Day, he promised to ensure that "this medieval anti-abortion law becomes a thing of the past".

He has said he would back measures to allow abortion until the 12th week -- a move pledged by the Civic Coalition, which has yet to vote the changes through in parliament.

On LGBTQ rights, another hot-button issue in Poland, Trzaskowski has said he backed the idea of civil unions, including for same-sex couples.

The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Poland for refusing to recognise and protect same-sex couples, who cannot marry or register their partnerships.

In an election debate in April, Trzaskowski said it was "completely absurd that two people... who are together their whole lives, cannot visit each other in the hospital or inherit from one another".

When he was elected Warsaw mayor, he signed an "LGBT+ Declaration" promising to protect gay people, angering the country's right-wing nationalists, who campaign against a perceived "LGBT ideology".

But as he tried to woo voters from across the political spectrum ahead of the runoff, he was photographed chatting over pints with far-right leader Slawomir Mentzen.

In a Facebook post he once described his love of old books and stated that he had smoked marijuana in his youth but only "rarely".

He owns a French bulldog named Babel ("Bubble"), with whom he frequently poses for photos.

J.Liv--ThChM