It was the young Donald Tusk’s habit, after watching or playing a game of football with friends, to make two toasts at the Pod Kasztanami bar in Gdańsk: the first to the fortunes of his club, Lechia Gdańsk, and the second to the “end of komunizm” in Poland.
Tusk, now 66, is unlikely to make the annual game of football that his close circle has been playing for the last 40 years, always at noon on New Year’s Eve. But at the final whistle there is likely to be a tentative third toast offered – to Tusk’s return as prime minister and the end of Poland’s disastrous flirtation with a populism that has ploughed deep divisions in society, undermined democratic institutions and driven a wedge between Warsaw and the EU.
