WARSAW (AFP) -- Incoming Polish liberal prime minister Donald Tusk said that he will work to heal rifts with neighbors Germany and Russia, and restore trust in Warsaw dented by the defeated conservatives.

“Poland’s priorities in its relations with its neighbors and with the European Union have remained stable since 1989. The past two years did not really change these priorities but the way of doing things was not very effective in achieving Poland’s goals,” Tusk told reporters.
Tusk’s Civic Platform beat the ruling Law and Justice party of identical twins President Lech Kaczynski and prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski in a snap election on October 21, ending two years of conservative rule.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski resigned on Monday and Lech Kaczynski, whose presidential term runs until 2010, is set to appoint Tusk as prime minister by the end of the week.
The Kaczynskis had a reputation for quarreling with fellow leaders of the 27-nation EU – notably Germany, as the twins revived the specter of World War II to accuse Berlin of trying to dominate Europe.
The brothers argued they were simply defending Poland’s interests in the EU, which Warsaw had joined in 2004.
Tusk said mending fences with Germany would be a key goal.
“I would like relations to get back to the level that we saw in the early 1990s, when the treaties were signed and symbolic meetings took place,” he said.
He was referring to accords which fixed the Polish-German frontier, and landmark talks between then German chancellor Helmut Kohl and Tadeusz Mazowiecki, who was Poland’s first prime minister after the fall of communism in 1989.
“Relations between Poland and Germany don’t need a radical breakthrough, but rather an increase in mutual trust,” Tusk said.
Tusk said he also wanted to repair ties with Russia, pledging “an effort to build trust on both sides”.
Warsaw and Moscow’s differences have caused “more tension than necessary” over the past two years, he said.
Warsaw, for example, has held up a key EU-Russia trade deal because Moscow has banned imports of Polish meat – an embargo that the Kaczynskis said was purely political.
But Tusk said Russia should still accept that Poland has friendly ties with the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia, whose pro-Western leaders have fallen foul of Moscow.