WARSAW — Donald Tusk’s coalition is scrambling after an ill-judged transparency drive revealed that some of Poland’s long-awaited EU Covid recovery cash went to eyebrow-raising projects, including a swingers’ club, a pizzeria with a solarium and a chain of vodka bars.

The uproar, which erupted after the government published interactive online maps of grant recipients in a bid to showcase openness, has handed the far-right Law and Justice (PiS) party an irresistible target.

Clicking through the data revealed that the 1.2 billion złoty (€282.3 million) program meant to revive hotels, restaurants and cultural venues battered by the pandemic had also bankrolled yachts, a pizzeria that added tanning beds, and, in one widely shared case, a business in southern Poland registered at the same address as a sex club.

PiS, clawing at every opportunity to regain momentum since losing power in 2023, has wasted no time in framing the row as proof of Tusk-era cronyism and waste.

“One of the biggest scandals since 1989,” thundered PiS MEP Tobiasz Bocheński, staging a stunt on Saturday outside the prime minister’s office with a mock plaque for the fictional “Ministry of Herring and Vodka” — a nod to one grant recipient. The party has promised parliamentary inspections and prosecutor referrals to trace every “link, dependency and decision-making chain.”

From flagship to flak magnet

The 1.2 billion złoty HoReCa scheme is part of the 254 billion złoty (€59.8 billion) Poland is due from the EU’s National Recovery Plan. Brussels had frozen the funds during PiS rule due to rule-of-law concerns, and unlocking them was a central promise of Tusk’s 2023 election campaign. The HoReCa cash was designed to help small and medium-sized tourism and hospitality businesses diversify so they could survive another crisis.

Instead, the map swiftly transformed the program from a showcase into a political headache.

One restaurant owner in Łódź, whose grant was flagged online for financing two yachts, defended the purchase as a legitimate way to diversify his business in case of future lockdowns.

“We didn’t get this money for vacations,” Grzegorz Urbaniak told the portal Money.pl, arguing that boats could be rented to tourists when restaurants were closed. 

The owner of the business registered at the same address as a swingers’ club said his grant had paid for metalworking machinery, not adult entertainment.

Officials stress that many of the eyebrow-raising purchases met program rules negotiated by the PiS government in 2021, which allowed spending on “diversification” projects such as tourist rentals or eco-friendly attractions.

Tusk has promised “zero tolerance” for abuse of EU funds. 

“We put too much effort into unlocking these billions to allow anyone to waste them,” Tusk said on X on Saturday, vowing that “anyone who made mistakes will face consequences, regardless of their position or party affiliation.” Prosecutors have opened preliminary inquiries, and the funds ministry says an audit will deliver initial results by late September.

Coalition strain

For Tusk, the row piles fresh pressure onto an already crowded agenda. The ministry overseeing the funds is run by Polska 2050, a coalition partner led by parliament speaker Szymon Hołownia. His 31-seat party is crucial to Tusk’s majority but has had its own PR headaches, including a summer scandal over a late-night meeting with PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński.

For PiS, the flap has become a way to question Tusk’s ability to manage his coalition and to highlight tensions between the prime minister and Hołownia. The controversy has drawn attention to the role of Polska 2050 in overseeing the program and given PiS an opportunity to criticize both leaders at once.

The spending row comes only weeks after Tusk reshuffled his Cabinet in a bid to regain momentum following a presidential election loss, a shake-up that underscored both the fragility of his coalition and the difficulty of keeping it aligned.

The presidential election saw nationalist Karol Nawrocki defeat Tusk’s preferred candidate, Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, a result that dealt a major blow to the government’s reform agenda and is expected to make passing legislation far more difficult.