Donald Tusk, the new head of Europe

Initially reluctant to leave national politics, Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister was persuaded by his wife Malgorzata for the “prestige, better money and less problems at work” that come with a top Brussels job at the top of EU officialdom renowned for its “gravy train” pay and perks.

Mr Tusk currently earns 240,000 zloty a year, a salary that is worth just €60,000 (£47,500) a year, making him one of the lowest paid EU leaders. In the EU post, he will earn over five times with a pay and perks package worth well over €300,000 a year, including a personal motorcade of five limousines.

That Mr Tusk could step into some of Europe’s biggest shoes has surprised many in Poland. Unlike Radek Sikorski, his ardently Europhile foreign minister, he has never made any public declaration of seeking a job in Brussels - even last month saying that he intended to stay in Poland - and has never really outlined in depth his views on Europe.

Senior EU officials have described a growing consensus building around Mr Tusk, who is supported by Germany, as the star of his main rival, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the Danish prime minister and daughter-in-law of Lord Kinnock, wanes.

“It is a progressive consensus. Her name is Angela Merkel,” joked a Brussels ambassador. Earlier last week, perhaps seeking to curry favour in Berlin, David Cameron added his support to Mr Tusk’s bandwagon.

The Prime Minister backed Mr Tusk to please the German chancellor and also in the hope that the centre-Right Pole will act as a counter-balance to the federalist ambitions of Jean-Claude Juncker, the incoming president of the European Commission. The 57-year-old prime minister’s prospects for a European role are mainly hindered by his weakness at English.

Although improving, Mr Tusk rarely speaks English in public and when he does it comes with a strong Polish accent. Although Mr Tusk’s commitment to the EU has grown over his seven years in office as Poland prospered from union membership, the 57-year-old Polish leader has retained a pragmatic stance on European policy and is committed to its reform.

Mr Tusk has also long been a proponent of free markets, privatisation and minimal government interference - a stance that should made him a natural ally of the UK. Despite this, Poland and the UK have clashed in Europe with the two falling out over Mr Cameron call for limits on EU freedom of movement rights that benefit millions of Poles working in Britain.

His relationship with Mrs Merkel, has been a mixed blessing domestically, leading to accusations from nationalists circles that he is too close to a country that was for long Poland’s traditional enemy but her blessing counts for a lot in Brussels. Mr Tusk’s instinct to form strong bonds with Germany may stem from his own background.

Although born in the northern city of Gdansk, his family hail from the Kaszuby region of Poland, a small distinctive area not far from the city where, for years before the Second World War, Polish and German culture entwined and national divisions blurred. One of Mr Tusk’s grandfathers was even forced to join Hitler’s armies in 1944 after spending time in a concentration camp.

This fact was picked up by his opponents, and used in an attempt derail his political career - but the attempt failed and Mr Tusk went on to become a dominant force in Polish politics. As leader of the economically liberal Civic Platform party, he became prime minister in 2007 after inflicting a heavy defeat on his bitter foe Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

Credited with bringing order and stability after the turbulent Kaczynski years, which were punctuated by frequent scandals and arguments with Poland’s neighbours, the softly-spoken Mr Tusk made Polish history in 2011 by becoming the first prime minister to be re-elected since the fall of Communism.

But since then his star had waned. His government has been dogged by scandal and accusations that it is doing too little to reform the economy, and to the chagrin of its supporters Civic Platform now trails Mr Kaczynski’s Law and Justice party in the opinion polls. Sensing that the departure of Mr Tusk will hasten the demise of Civic Platform, Jaroslaw Kaczynski said he hoped his rival would get the job because it would mean “he will not be here”.

Rafal Pankowski, an expert on Poland’s political Right, also said he feared Tusk leaving Poland could inflict a hammer blow on his party, which faces a general election next year. “Without him it is difficult to imagine how the party will survive and maintain the same level of support,” he commented. “There is no successor who has the same track record as he does. He holds the party together.”