New Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that "Poland will not allow this sort of a blackmail" from the EU | Pawel Supernak/EPA Incoming Polish PM: We won’t bow to ‘nasty threats’ Mateusz Morawiecki gives first interview since being nominated as Beata Szydło’s replacement.

WARSAW — Poland’s new prime minister is in no hurry to introduce the euro and accused the EU of making "nasty threats."

Mateusz Morawiecki also told the Catholic Telewizja Trwam television channel that his government would “take money away from mafias and give it to people."

Morawiecki, of the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS), said that “pending approval of the party leadership” he would seek the support of parliament for his leadership on Tuesday. He said he planned to keep the government “almost identical” to that of outgoing prime minister Beata Szydło.

On Thursday evening, PiS switched out Szydło for Morawiecki, her deputy and the minister of economic development and finance.

“We are a part of the European Union but we want to transform it, to re-Christianize it" — Mateusz Morawiecki, incoming Polish PM

Coming exactly half way through the government’s four-year term, the switch was personally pushed through by Jarosław Kaczyński, the PiS leader and most powerful politician in the country, over unusually loud protests from PiS leaders and rank and file members.

The prerecorded interview with Telewizja Trwam was aired Friday, just two hours after Morawiecki had been officially nominated as PM by President Andrzej Duda. He has given no other interviews since then.

Telewizja Trwam is a part of a media group run by the priest Tadeusz Rydzyk and has never exceeded more than 1 percent of the national audience.

The audience of Telewizja Trwam, together with Rydzyk’s Radio Maryja station, tend to be staunch supporters of PiS. Morawiecki, a smooth banker, lacks the common touch of his predecessor and badly needs to improve his credentials among Law and Justice voters.

“What is most important for me is that the Lord gives me enough strength to serve Poland,” Morawiecki told the priest who was conducting the interview.

“We are a part of the European Union but we want to transform it, to re-Christianize it. This is my dream,” he said.

“We are building Poland as a strong, efficient state, but also a state that incorporates universal and Christian values. We will defend them, as well as our uniqueness, against the background — unfortunately, we must say — of laicization [defrocking of the clergy] and falling into deeper consumerism, lack of principles, lack of values which is a prevailing feature now in Western Europe,” he said.

Morawiecki said his government would continue the generous social agenda of the outgoing Cabinet but added that he wanted “to do even more work internationally in order to peel off these very unjust labels that some people try to stick on us.”

PiS spokesperson Beata Mazurek said Thursday that the change of a prime minister was caused by the need for the government to concentrate on “international and economic” issues.

Asked about the possible loss of EU cohesion funds as a punishment for Warsaw’s alleged abuse of the rule of law, Morawiecki said: “These are nasty threats. Poland is a proud and great nation and we will not allow this sort of a blackmail.”

The European Commission and Poland have been involved in a long-running spat over PiS changes to the media and the judiciary, and last week Brussels took Poland — as well as Hungary and the Czech Republic — to the European Court of Justice over their refusal to host asylum seekers.

Morawiecki also said his government would continue fighting tax evasion.

Any suggestions that PiS wanted to lead Poland out of the EU were "completely untrue," Morawiecki said

“We’ll take money away from mafias and tax criminals and give them to people, to Polish families,” he said, adding that his old ministry managed to squeeze 30 billion zlotys (€7.5 billion) from tax-avoiding companies over the last year.

In a part of the interview that was not aired but reported on the Radio Maryja portal, he said any suggestions that PiS wanted to lead Poland out of the EU were "completely untrue and such allegations are absurd."

When asked if he planned to move ahead with Poland adopting the euro, he replied: “We certainly are not in a hurry to join the eurozone as it is experiencing problems now and has many limitations. We should stay with the national currency.”