Grzegorz Schetyna

Poland's president on Wednesday swore in Donald Tusk as the new pro-EU prime minister, putting an end to eight years of right-wing populist rule.

The ministers of the new administration were successively sworn in by the conservative head of state, who is allied with the previous government of the Law and Justice (PiS) party.

Fast forward to today and this weekend's congress of Civic Coalition is supposed to be accompanied by the news Tusk will take over leadership of the fledgling coalition that contains the party he once led to two consecutive electoral victories, serving as prime minister from 2007 to 2014.

And in Hungary's local elections, the opposition retook power in Budapest and won mayoral races in 10 other cities.

The question now is whether these results augur a broader political shift in the region.

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets across Poland Thursday after lawmakers adopted a controversial reform of the Supreme Court despite the threat of unprecedented EU sanctions.

UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has stated Thursday that sanctions against Russia can only be lifted in case the Minsk agreement is upheld.

He arrived in Kiev for an official visit and met with Ukraine's Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, President Petro Poroshenko, and PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

The former Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is to be inaugurated to the position of President of the European Council at an official handover ceremony today.

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Russia said Monday it has expelled a German diplomat and a number of Polish diplomats in response to the expulsion of its diplomats amid cooling ties with the EU over Ukraine.
      
Moscow said the German was expelled from Moscow in a retaliatory measure for what it described as an "unfriendly" step earlier by Berlin of expelling a Russian diplomat.