It is all about the 25 million that Poland gained from selling Spain the rights for carbon dioxide emission. According to the agreement, the Polish government should spend the money on protecting the climate. But Tusk did not like this statement suggested by the Minister of Environment, Maciej Nowicki. This was discussed many times at the government sittings, but both Tusk and Nowicki would only keep exchanging arguments on the topic. It all reached its peak a few weeks ago when Tusk told Nowicki off in front of everyone. "Wprost" has managed to reconstruct what he said, based on the information gained from the ministers present at that sitting. “You did not have the right to decide what the money will be spent on. The money belongs to the whole country and it is not your private property. The government should have more to say about the way this money will be spent. It is possible that some of the money would be spent on protecting the climate, but you are not the one to decide about this individually,” Tusk allegedly said.

"Nowicki was simply crushed. After he recovered, he stated that the money cannot be spent on anything else, because the law says that such kind of money needs to be spent on climate issues.  This argument convinced Tusk and it was done as Nowicki wished, but Tusk’s words had clearly hurt him," says our informer, who witnessed what had happened.
This could have been the last straw that broke the camel’s back. "Nowicki had been showing that the work for the government is beyond his ultra vires for a long time, but this lack of trust shown by Tusk made him eventually hand in his dismissal," says a person who has talked to Nowicki about the situation.