Europe & EU – Poland

Jubilation and high expectations as Poland marks end of right-wing rule
In a cathartic moment for many in Poland, centrist political veteran Donald Tusk got the nod on Monday to be the country’s next prime minister, marking the end of eight years of right-wing nationalist rule and a dramatic shift in the European political landscape.
Tusk’s alliance secured a majority in October elections with a promise to restore Polish democracy and the country’s relationship with European allies.

20 October
Anne Applebaum quoted on X (Twitter)
Interesting – apparently a bunch of Hungarians were advising the PiS campaign in Poland, which helps explain why it was so crude, and maybe why it backfired
Poland election: Women and youth force PiS from power
(BBC) … Polls show that 68.8% of voters aged under 29 turned out on Sunday, a major surge from 46.4% at the last parliamentary election in 2019.
More young people cast their ballots this time than the over-60s, which is also highly unusual.
Many of them voted for change.
Wroclaw is a case in point: Jagodno, the suburb with the huge queue, is described by locals as a modern estate with a young population. The opposition Civic Coalition won 43.6% there. PiS got just 5.9%.
The major parties didn’t pay particular attention to the youth vote during an extremely negative election campaign. Instead, the government claimed Civic Coalition would bring chaos, including unlimited migration, and called its leader Donald Tusk a stooge of Europe.
… There was also a concerted effort to make sure that every ballot cast for the opposition would count.
The #WarsawTrip online campaign urged people to move their registration out of big cities like Warsaw, to give their vote more weight in the complex Polish electoral system.
Activists produced maps showing people the best places to go: smaller towns, where the race was close, and with proportionally more MPs per vote than in Warsaw.
The idea that this election was a last chance to stop a populist government from turning Poland away from the EU and some of its core values was a major motivator.
So was the chance to give women a bigger say in Polish politics, especially after a near-ban on abortion prompted enormous street protests in 2020.

15-18 October
Poland’s Transformative Election
How Europe Would Benefit From a New Government in Warsaw
By Daniel Fried and Alina Polyakova
(Foreign Affairs) In recent years, Poland’s potential to lead had been hobbled by the Polish government, which became weighed down with quarrels at home and abroad. The Law and Justice party made changes to Poland’s judiciary that critics say were intended to cripple its independence. The judicial reforms led to widespread protests at home and persistent clashes between the Polish government and EU institutions, including the European Court of Human Rights and the European Commission. The EU even suspended payments to Poland until it backed off many of the changes to its judiciary.
The Polish government also put consistent pressure on the country’s independent media. … Polish domestic politics also started to erode the country’s unified position on Ukraine. … Coupled with Poland’s troubles at home was the government’s tendency to pick fights with key allies. …
A new Polish government led by the liberal Civic Platform party with centrist and leftist coalition partners could put Poland on a better path.
Momentous Shift Looms for Poland as Governing Party Looks Set to Be Ousted
An expected liberal coalition would probably reverse deeply conservative policies at home and diminish Poland’s role abroad as a beacon for right-wing groups.
(NYT) In the end, after a long, vicious election campaign in a highly polarized country, opponents of the nationalist governing party, Law and Justice, won a clear majority of seats in a pivotal general election held on Sunday, according to final official results Tuesday.
That victory opened the way for a potentially drastic shift away from Poland’s deeply conservative policies at home and its role abroad as a beacon for right-wing groups and politicians opposed to liberal values.
The European Union has long clashed with Poland’s government over the rule of law, the protection of minority rights and other issues. Now a new government in Warsaw offers an opportunity for a reset with the most populous and, in terms of economic and military power, most important of the formerly communist states admitted after the end of the Cold War.
What happens next in Poland? 5 things you need to know after a landmark election
It’s not going to be fast or easy for a new government to roll back 8 years of actions by the Law and Justice party.
(Politico Eu) Job No. 1 — creating a new government – The first move belongs to President Andrzej Duda, a former PiS member who has always been loyal to the party. He has said that presidents traditionally choose the leader of the largest party to try to form a government, but if PiS really is a no-hoper, Duda could delay the formation of a stable government.
Under the Polish constitution, the president has to call a new parliamentary session within 30 days of the election. He then has 14 days to nominate a candidate for prime minister; once named, the nominee has 14 days to win a vote of confidence in parliament.
Poland’s Back Just as Europe Needs Leaders
(Bloomberg) Poland may have just delivered a welcome ray of autumn sunlight for the European Union as it confronts multiple crises at its borders: immigration, Ukraine and now the Israel-Hamas war.
A record turnout in yesterday’s election looks to have helped the pro-European opposition defeat the nationalist Law & Justice party that has ruled for eight years with a Poland First mentality.
Poland Shows That Autocracy Is Not Inevitable
The ruling party tried to use the Polish state to hold on to power, but voters rejected the effort.
By Anne Applebaum
(The Atlantic) Even if you don’t live in Poland, don’t care about Poland, and can’t find Poland on a map, take note: The victory of the Polish opposition proves that autocratic populism can be defeated, even after an unfair election. Nothing is inevitable about the rise of autocracy or the decline of democracy. Invest your time in political and civic organization if you want to create change, because sometimes it works.
… As always when I write about Poland, I am declaring an interest: My husband, Radek Sikorski, is a politician for the largest opposition party, the Civic Coalition, and campaigned on its behalf, although he was not a candidate. Also, a dozen young campaign volunteers stayed at my house on Saturday night, and I concede that they might have helped convince me that campaigns aimed at mobilizing younger voters contributed to a record turnout.

Poland gives support to centrist opposition after 8 years of nationalist rule
(AP) — The majority of voters in Poland’s general election supported opposition parties that promised to reverse democratic backsliding and repair the nation’s relationship with allies, including the European Union and Ukraine, near-complete results showed Monday.
Poland’s opposition leader Tusk declares win after exit poll shows ruling populists losing majority
(AP) — Polish opposition leader Donald Tusk declared the beginning of a new era for his country after opposition parties appeared to have won enough votes in Sunday’s election to oust the ruling populist party.
That party, Law and Justice, has bickered with allies and faced accusations of eroding rule of law at home in its eight years in power. It appeared that voters were mobilized like never before, voting in even greater numbers than when the nation ousted the communist authorities in 1989.
If the result predicted by an exit poll holds, Law and Justice won but also lost. It got more seats than any other party but not enough to build a government and pass laws in the legislature. …three opposition parties have likely won a combined 248 seats in the 460-seat lower house of parliament, the Sejm. The largest of the groups is Civic Coalition, led by Tusk, a former prime minister and former European Union president. It won 31.6% of votes, the exit poll said.
… There is a high level of state ownership in the Polish economy, and the governing party has built up a system of patronage, handing out thousands of jobs and contracts to its loyalists. A political change could open the way for the EU to release billions of euros in funding that has been withheld over what the EU viewed as democratic erosion.
… The fate of Poland’s relationship with Ukraine was also at stake. The Confederation party campaigned on an anti-Ukraine message, accusing the country of lacking gratitude to Poland for its help in Russia’s war. Its poor showing will be a relief for Kyiv.

13 October
Many who struggled against Poland’s communist system feel they are fighting for democracy once again
(AP) — Dariusz Stola began working with Poland’s anti-communist Solidarity movement in 1983. He was just 19 but already appalled by the way the regime imposed its harsh censorship, not just on political thought but culture as well. … Now a historian specializing in the communist era, he sees strong parallels with the current populist government, particularly the way it spreads “systematic lies” and propaganda against its political opponents, using taxpayer-funded public media.
Since the Law and Justice party came to power in 2015, it has sought to imprint its nationalistic, ultra-conservative viewpoint on the country, threatening to deprive independent organizations of funding and creating parallel institutions staffed with loyalists.
Poles to the polls!
(GZERO) This weekend, Poles go to the polls in a Poland that is as polarized between political poles — ok, ok, we’ll stop. But the election is a supremely big deal for the EU’s fifth most populous country, a nation that is aiming to become the military superpower of Eastern Europe.
The ruling Law and Justice Party, aka PiS, which has held power since 2015, is hoping that its mix of Catholic-inflected nationalism and generous social welfare payments will help it to carry the day, despite an increasingly sluggish economy. PiS is currently leading the polls, at 37%
The main opposition party, Civic Platform, known by its Polish initials “PO”, says the current government’s ultra-conservative social values are out of touch with today’s Poland, and it warns that the PiS’s abuse of democratic norms is distancing the country from the rest of Europe — the EU has already withheld money from Warsaw over the government’s moves to undermine the judiciary. PO, led by former Prime Minister and one-time European Commission president Donald Tusk, is polling at 30%.

3-7 October
EU veteran Tusk heads into final week of battle to steer Poland from populism
Election is contest between Law and Justice party and politician it claims represents malevolent foreign forces
(The Guardian) “I want this message to reach everybody in Poland,” said Donald Tusk, speaking to a rally of supporters, gathered in a cavernous indoor sports arena in the city of Bydgoszcz. “This is really the last chance.”
As a vicious, bruising campaign comes to its climax ahead of parliamentary elections on 15 October, Tusk, a veteran of Polish and European politics, has sought to make this point with increasing urgency.
Poland: Elections in a time of broken media
A battered media sphere, anti-immigration rhetoric and euroscepticism: What’s at stake in Polish parliamentary elections. Plus, Russia’s war on Ukrainian culture.
(Al Jazeera) With a week to go until elections in Poland, the ruling Law and Justice Party has used its control of the public broadcaster to drown out opposition voices and push its anti-European Union, anti-migrant messaging.
Paul Wells: All the things that could happen next
… Poland’s had a hard history. It was carved up repeatedly by covetous neighbouring regimes, vanishing altogether as a sovereign country between 1795 and 1918. (All of Chopin’s astonishing music, all those polonaises and mazurkas, was written by a man whose country didn’t exist during his lifetime.) And then along came Hitler and Stalin. There are probably countless possible reactions to that history, but two have dominated Poland’s post-Berlin Wall history: on the one hand, a determination to do better with the great gift of freedom than the country ever could as a vassal state; on the other hand, suspicion and resentment. These impulses don’t map neatly into the country’s politics, but the incumbent PiS government is definitely the standard-bearer for suspicion and resentment.

Polish elections: who are the key players and what is at stake?
Tusk-led Civic Platform aims to unseat nationalist Law and Justice party in bitterly contested ballot
(The Guardian) Poland’s elections on 15 October could give the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party an unprecedented third term in office, or hand its longstanding opposition the chance to reverse what critics describe as eight years of democratic backsliding.
Another possibility is that they end in stalemate, with neither party able to form a coalition. Whatever happens, Poland’s politics will remain deeply polarised after a ballot that – amid war in Ukraine and a bitter dispute with the EU – is of more than usual interest abroad.
What is at stake in Poland’s election?
Anna Grzymała-Busse
(Brookings) As a key supporter of Ukraine, the largest post-communist country in the European Union, and a staunch U.S. ally, Poland’s October 15 parliamentary elections will have far-reaching consequences. Poles will choose between four more years of a populist government accused of several violations of the rule of law, undermining the EU, and xenophobic policies since it first came to office in 2015, or its long-standing opposition, and the chance for Poland to restore its democratic institutions and its international reputation. Regardless of the outcome, Polish politics will remain polarized.

30 September
All eyes in Europe are focused on Poland’s divisive election fight. But it’s not a pretty sight
Simon Tisdall
The bitter struggle to unseat Warsaw’s hard-right government foreshadows a wider struggle throughout the EU
(The Guardian) …as an extraordinarily vicious, polarising election battle nears its climax, the national story has taken a disturbing turn. Divided Poles are making victims of each other.
Fighting the neighbours, often alone, is a familiar Polish occupation, going back to the days of the Austro-Hungarian empire and before. After finally breaking free of Soviet communism in 1989, Poland joined the Nato alliance in 1999 and the EU in 2004. But new friendships did not dispel old habits and enmities.
Poland remains at daggers drawn with Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the dictatorship in Belarus. Anti-German jibes remain commonplace. And the ruling hard-right nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS) has been fighting the EU over judicial, media and human rights standards ever since taking power in 2015.
More surprisingly, given its generous post-invasion support, Warsaw is now at odds with Ukraine, too, over refugees, weapons supplies and a Polish ban on low-priced grain imports. Kyiv took particular exception to recent, patronising remarks likening its plight to a drowning swimmer. …
Yet with the 15 October election imminent, Poland’s propensity for scrapping with neighbours, friends and enemies alike, appears to be turning inwards. Opinion polls show the country is dangerously split. The tone of the campaign waxes venomous. In the partisan struggle for power, Poland risks pulling itself apart.

24 September
Zelenskyy seeks to rebuild bridges with Poles amid dispute over grain and weapons
Eschewing political confrontation, Ukrainian president gives awards to two volunteers, thanking ‘all of Poland’ for its support for Kyiv.
(Politico Eu) Although Poland was a die-hard ally of Ukraine in the early days of the Russian invasion, the conservative, nationalist government of the Law and Justice (PiS) party has taken an unexpectedly hard line against its war-torn neighbor in the past days, largely for reasons related to the impending election on October 15.
In order to protect Polish farmers — crucial to the ruling party’s electoral prospects next month — Warsaw has blocked agricultural imports from Ukraine, in a protectionist move that Kyiv says is illegal and has referred to the World Trade Organization.

20-22 September
Biden Should Press Poland and the EU to Make Up
Warsaw’s strategic role in Europe is too important for Washington to ignore.
By Sophia Besch, a fellow in the Europe Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Tara Varma, a visiting fellow at Brookings.
(Foreign Policy) … Poland is nowhere near fulfilling its potential as a strategic actor. The reasons that Warsaw punches below its weight are familiar by now—and entirely self-imposed. It is in constant conflict with the European Commission in Brussels, which has withheld billions of euros from Warsaw over serious rule-of-law concerns. More recently, Poland lost some of its strategic credibility when it banned grain imports from Ukraine.

Poland, Ukraine ready to hold talks over grain dispute
Talks are the first move to break a cycle of escalation since Poland, Hungary and Slovakia banned grain imports from Ukraine.
(Politico Eu) Poland and Ukraine said they are ready to start negotiations “in the coming days” to resolve their dispute over imports of Ukrainian grain.

Poland will stop providing weapons to Ukraine as dispute over grain imports deepens
(CNN) Poland said Wednesday it will stop providing weapons to Ukraine amid a growing dispute between the two countries over a temporary ban on Ukrainian grain imports.
Last week, the EU announced plans to suspend the ban. But three nations – Poland, Hungary and Slovakia – said they intended to defy the change and keep the restrictions in place.
Feud Between Friends Spells Danger for Ukraine
(Bloomberg) It’s never easy to see friends fight. Especially when there’s a war on.
That’s what makes the dispute between Ukraine and Poland so worrying: The latter is a crucial ally to Kyiv and the key gateway for economic and military aid aimed at stopping Russia’s invasion.
What started as an argument over Poland’s ban on the sale of Ukrainian grain on its territory rapidly spiraled into a full-blown crisis.
The Ukrainians blame the entire imbroglio on domestic politics in Poland, where the ruling Law & Justice party is trying to win a third consecutive term in Oct. 15 elections. The ban on grain sales — which Ukraine desperately needs to fund the war — is seen as an attempt to appease farmers who make up a crucial voting bloc that may decide who leads the next government.
There’s also the roughly 2 million Ukrainian refugees who’ve fled to Poland. Law & Justice said it will probably cut off subsidies to them next year.
While Poland appeared to be seeking to calm the situation today, the dispute cast doubt over Europe’s commitment to Ukraine over the long haul. And the once-strong friendship between allies may never be the same.

12 September
Patrick Wintour: Poland gripped by febrile pre-election atmosphere as mud-slinging intensifies
Polarised politics is nothing new in the eastern European country but October’s poll may have wide-ranging consequences
(The Guardian) In just the first week of campaigning for Poland’s parliamentary elections, which will take place on 15 October, there have been allegations of politically manipulated interest rate cuts, the firing of a deputy foreign minister after visas were allegedly sold to people outside the EU and the publication of a Senate commission report claiming that intelligence services illegally used spyware to monitor opposition politicians around the time of the 2015 polls.
Allegations of foreign interference have been made against Russia and Germany, the latter accused by government ministers of trying to manipulate voters who support Donald Tusk’s opposition party, Civic Platform.
Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the ruling rightwing populist Law and Justice (Pis) party, has described Tusk as the personification of evil, an “enemy of Poland” and a “pest”. At the launch of the PiS campaign Tusk was described as an “external party” with “decision-making centres outside Poland”. In a speech in Katowice, Mateusz Morawiecki, the prime minister, warned that the opposition was preparing a “women’s hell” featuring “rapes, robberies, murders” and “young, rootless immigrants storming the borders”.
The outcome of the Polish elections is seen as pivotal to the future of the EU and the outcome of the war in Ukraine.

12 April
Poland and Ukraine: The emerging alliance that could reshape Europe
By Taras Kuzio
(Atlantic Council) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s recent high-profile visit to Poland underlined the deepening cooperation between these two neighboring countries and the increasingly prominent role their partnership is playing in European politics. At a time when the likes of Germany and France are struggling to find the right response to resurgent Russian imperialism, Poland has emerged as Ukraine’s most steadfast European supporter in the fightback against Putin’s invasion. This is now sparking debate over a possible eastward shift in Europe’s geopolitical center of gravity.