Andrzej Duda, a youthful lawyer backed by the main opposition party, was sworn in as Poland’s president on Thursday, marking a rightward shift in the EU’s largest eastern member state and the start of a potentially awkward cohabitation with the government.
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Many have experience working for the government and the presidency that Duda’s conservative Law and Justice party held years ago.
In his first speech as president to the two chambers of parliament, Duda, 43, also said he will uphold his pledges to raise the tax-free allowance and lower the retirement age.
Duda’s new powers include being in charge of Poland’s armed forces, forging the country’s foreign policy with the foreign minister and drafting his own legislation. Duda’s wife, Agata, was by his side.
Earlier in the day, Duda officially assumed office as president of Poland during a joint session of both houses of parliament in Warsaw.
Duda’s taking the helm in Poland is also expected to bring considerable domestic change.
Duda said as more Polish youth emigrated, Polish diplomacy and education units overseas should be strengthened to meet their needs.
“But European cohesion must be constructed in such a way that Polish affairs are also taken into account”, he added.
He vowed to press for more North Atlantic Treaty Organisation security guarantees at the group’s summit in Warsaw next year.
It is unclear whether Duda will now sign the bill or veto it. During the campaign he proposed a full conversion at a historical rate, a move that could cost lenders up to $17 billion, possibly pushing some of them under water.
“Mrs Kopacz reminded the new president that he was head of our common state and all its citizens, those who voted for him and those who supported his rivals”. We need greater guarantees from North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, not only us as Poland, but the whole central and eastern Europe in the current geopolitical situation, hard as you perfectly know.
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“We must maintain connectivity with the young overseas”, he said “to create conditions for their return to Poland”.
