Ryszard Petru (at right) marches in Warsaw in June 2016 | EPA/Rafal Guz ‘We don’t want to become a second Hungary!’ Ryszard Petru is the unproven Polish hope of liberals across the EU.

WARSAW — European centrists anointed a new poster child this weekend in their fight against the illiberal groundswell across the Continent being spread by the likes of Viktor Orbán.

Ryszard Petru, telegenic leader of Nowoczesna or the Modern party, was the toast of the centrist congress in the Polish capital, where the 44-year-old was billed as the pro-EU leader of “a huge coalition of hope” by liberal heavyweights such as Belgium's Guy Verhofstadt.

Nowoczesna stormed into the Polish parliament two months after it was formed in 2015 after taking a leading role in street protests against the nationalist government. The party now vies for the mantle of Poland’s opposition leader after gaining 23 percent of support in several polls this year, even pulling ahead of the former ruling party Civic Platform.

In an interview with POLITICO, Petru said he wanted the European Commission to continue its investigation of Poland for alleged subversion of the rule of law through changes to the country’s constitutional court.

“Even if it fails, it makes sense to do it,” Petru said, because “it shows the EU is delivering."

But ultimately “only Poles can solve the problem in Poland,” he added.

Policy-wise, Petru promised an aggressive new reform agenda. "We don't want to become a second Hungary here!" he told cheering delegates at the ALDE party congress. Nowoczesna is also the only party in the country that wants to put Poland on a fast-track path to join the eurozone.

He accused the head of the ruling Law and Justice Party, Jarosław Kaczynski, of “demolishing Polish democracy piece by piece,” but said a backlash can already be felt in Polish society.

“After such populism and aggression, the people are going to dream of a rational approach, and getting back to Europe,” Petru said.

Bankster?

His message will be music to the ears of liberal-minded EU policymakers, and local observers said there is plenty more to come. “Brussels will love him because he is a young technocrat,” said a Polish journalist who requested anonymity. “This is a guy who talks in Powerpoint.”

Not everyone is convinced.

While Petru says his electoral strategy is “all about delivery and hope,” targeting the young and moderate Law and Justice supporters, left-leaning Polish youth have dubbed the economist, who's worked in several banks, “Petru the Bankster.”

Several liberals told POLITICO in Warsaw they doubt his party is capable of converting positive poll results into an election victory because it lacks grassroots infrastructure and is short on cash.

Although Petru is a new face on the European stage, in Poland he’s always been close to power. Fresh out of university in the mid-1990s, he worked as an adviser to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Leszek Balcerowicz. In 2001, he ran unsuccessfully for parliament for the now-defunct Freedom Union, before going into banking and becoming a partner at the PWC consulting firm.

Petru has no intention of softening his sharp positions, such as transferring personal and corporate income tax powers to local government and confronting interest groups such as trade unions.

"We are pro raising the retirement age and getting rid of pension privileges," he said. "Three years ago I would be criticized as too liberal. Now it sounds rational compared to what the government is doing: lowering retirement age, blocking the constitutional court, taking over NGOs, banning demonstrations."

Petru has harsh words for the center-right Civic Platform but acknowledged he will likely need to work with them to unseat the Law and Justice Party. "Whereas Civic Platform symbolized indolence and nepotism, Nowoczesna presented a new liberal agenda for Poland,” Petru said.

Liberal parties have achieved some success in recent years in Poland, although they have often faded quickly. Janusz Palikot, once an ally of former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, split from Civic Platform to offer a liberal alternative in 2011 parliamentary elections. He won 10 percent of the vote but had disappeared from the political scene by the time 2015 elections took place.

The liberal leader in the European Parliament, Guy Verhofstadt, told the ALDE congress that "Poles will never surrender” to authoritarian rule.

“Here (in Poland) started the resistance against fascism, against communism, and today again, here starts the resistance against the so-called illiberal state, the champions of nationalism, the cronies of populism,” Verhofstadt said.