(WARSAW) - Poland's incoming prime minister Donald Tusk said Thursday he would adopt a strong pro-EU policy after two years of eurosceptic conservative rule.

"One can be certain that the government will take a very strong pro-European direction, and European relations will be intensified," Tusk told reporters at a joint press conference with European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso.

Tusk's liberal Civic Platform party won legislative elections on October 21. Tusk has repeatedly said he wants to improve relations with the rest of the EU, which Poland joined in 2004.

The outgoing government of conservative prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the Law and Justice party, regularly fought with other members of the 27-nation bloc.

Kaczynski and his identical twin President Lech Kaczynski, whose term in office runs until 2010, consistently argued that they were simply defending Polish national interests.

Other EU leaders barely disguised their relief at the demise of the two-year-old conservative government, which blocked EU talks on a string of issues.

"Today, I was able to congratulate personally Donald Tusk, my good friend, for his victory, for the victory of his party in the parliamentary elections," Barroso said Thursday.

"We the EU will benefit from an engaged, constructive, dynamic, European Poland," he said.

Tusk is due to form his government in coming days, and Barroso was his first high-level international visitor.

Barroso was in Warsaw to receive an honorary doctorate from the Warsaw School of Economics.

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