President of the Council of Ministers Prezes Rady Ministrów |
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Logo of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister
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Residence |
Willa Parkowa Rezydencja Premiera RP, ul. Parkowa, Warsaw |
Appointer | President of the Republic of Poland |
Inaugural holder | Ignacy Daszyński |
Formation | 6 November 1918 |
Website | www.premier.gov.pl |
The President of the Council of Ministers (Polish: Prezes Rady Ministrów), colloquially referred to as the Prime Minister of Poland (Polish: Premier Polski), is the leader of the cabinet and the head of government of Poland. The current responsibilities and traditions of the office stem from the creation of the contemporary Polish state (Third Polish Republic), and the office is defined in the Constitution of 1997. According to the Constitution, the President of Poland nominates and appoints the prime minister, who will then propose the composition of the cabinet. Fourteen days following his or her appointment, the prime minister must submit a programme outlining the government's agenda to the Sejm, requiring a vote of confidence. The office of the prime minister is generally considered the most powerful post in Polish politics, with the presidency considered largely as a symbolic office. However, conflicts stemming from both interest and conflicting powers have arisen between the two offices in the past.
The current and sixteenth Prime Minister is Beata Szydło of the Law and Justice party. Szydło replaced incumbent premier Ewa Kopacz of the Civic Platform party in the 2015 parliamentary election, becoming the first woman to succeed another woman as head of government in the republic's history.
Near the end of the First World War, an assortment of groups contested to proclaim an independent Polish state. In early November 1918, a socialist provisional government under Ignacy Daszyński declared independence, while a separate committee in Kraków claimed to rule West Galicia. In Warsaw, the German-Austrian appointed Regency Council agreed to transfer political responsibilities to Marshal Józef Piłsudski, recently released from Magdeburg fortress, as Chief of State of the new Polish nation. Piłsudski summoned Daszyński to the capital to form a government, where Piłsudski agreed to appoint Daszyński as the republic's first prime minister. Daszyński's premiership, however, remained brief, after the politician failed to form a workable coalition. Piłsudski turned instead to Jędrzej Moraczewski, who successfully crafted a workable government for the Second Republic's first months of existence.