Ukraine has found a creative workaround to weeks of blockades at the borders of the European Union, which have painfully stymied the flow of military aid to the war-torn country.
The first train destined to carry blockaded supplies into Ukraine via railway from Poland travelled between Ukraine and Poland on Tuesday, Ukraine’s former infrastructure minister, Volodymyr Omelyan, told Newsweek on Thursday.
Trains are currently operating both ways, with a daily capacity of around 50 trucks, which is “something to break the ice” but far from the ideal scenario, he said.
New footage circulating online appears to show trucks mounted onto rail platforms crossing the Polish border with Ukraine, evading the logjams and delays at border crossing points from the European Union into non-member Ukraine.
Polish truckers have mounted weeks of protests on the border with Ukraine, arguing that Ukrainian truckers who have permit-free access to the European Union mean that Polish haulers can’t compete with their prices. Slovak haulers also began their own demonstrations from the start of December.
The EU waived the need for Ukrainian truckers entering the bloc to have a permit in mid-2022 following the outbreak of all-out war in Ukraine. The waiver is due to expire next June.
The blockade has wreaked havoc on the flow of goods and supplies in and out of Ukraine, posing dangers Kyiv will be keen to avert to the country’s economy, which has spent more than 21 months concentrating on fighting off Russia’s invasion.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland, Vasyl Zvarych, called the blockade a “painful stab in Ukraine’s back” on November 6, adding that “solidarity” between Ukraine and the EU in the face of Moscow’s invasion was at risk.
Ukrainian drivers wait near their trucks, blocked by Polish protesters near the Polish-Ukrainian border crossing on November 19, 2023 in Lublin Voivodeship, Poland. Ukraine appears to have found a creative workaround to weeks of blockades at the borders of the European Union in Poland that have stymied the flow of military aid to the war-torn country. Yan Dobronosov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images
The Federation of Employers of Ukraine, representing Ukrainian business interests, had said the blockade will have “extremely dangerous consequences” for the Ukrainian economy, as well as the country’s security.
“The estimated direct losses of Ukraine’s economy from blocking a number of checkpoints at the Polish-Ukrainian border already amount to more than âŹ400 million [$430 million],” the organization said on November 23. A fortnight later, the economic impact has likely grown significantly.
On Wednesday, Reuters reported that organizations providing military aid to Ukraine could see “several weeks” of delays of drones and other supplies, citing three unidentified industry sources. It had been reported that humanitarian aid and military supplies were exempt from the blockade, but many items for Ukraine’s military are thought to arrive on commercial trucks that fall under the blockade.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian Railways, which looks after the country’s rail infrastructure, told domestic media that it was investigating how to move goods across the border by rail, rather than road.
“This is when a truck pulls into a platform and is transported by rail,” Ukrainian Railways official Valery Tkachev told Ukrainian broadcaster Kanal7.
“But this is quite a new type of transportation for us. It was never in high demand,” Tkachev said.
Although a step forward to alleviate the blockade’s effects on Ukraine, it is not a permanent solution and using the rail networks for this purpose means sacrificing other goods transportation, Omelyan told Newsweek.
Newsweek has reached out to Ukrainian Railways and the Ukrainian ministry of infrastructure for comment via email.
The protesters blockaded several crossing points of the eight joining Ukraine and Poland by road, including one of the busiest: the Medyka crossing.
“At the moment it’s taking a minimum of eight days to re-enter Ukraine,” one Ukrainian trucker told The Guardian earlier this week as he attempted to cross back into the country. “That’s the best-case scenario. Worst case is two weeks.”
“We are not against the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian state,” a Polish protester told Polish outlet Notes from Poland shortly after the blockade began. “We support their efforts to fight the Russian invaders, but, as business owners, we have already reached our limits.”
Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, said on December 3 that Kyiv and Warsaw were opening the Uhryniv-DolhobyczĂłw checkpoint to move empty trucks from Ukraine to Poland after “lengthy negotiations.”
“The ultimate goal of the work is to unblock the border,” Kubrakov added.
Empty trucks had started leaving Ukraine through the crossing at 1 a.m. local time in December 4, Ukraine’s state border service said.
Warsaw officials have called for the reinstatement of the Ukrainian permits, with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki saying on Monday that the country “will very strongly and unequivocally demand the restoration of transport permits for Ukrainian drivers.”
In late November, the bloc’s transport commissioner, Adina Valean, said that neither the European Union nor Ukraine should be “taken hostage” by the protesting haulers, and that the blockades were “unacceptable.”
Ukrainian Railways said on Thursday that the first train to arrive back in Ukraine was carrying 23 lorries and was still with Polish customs officials.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
A majority of voters across seven Western countries, including the United States, France and the United Kingdom, believe their democracy is in worse shape than it was five years ago, according to a poll whose results were seen by POLITICO.
Nearly seven in 10 American respondents said the state of democracy had declined in recent years, while 73 percent of poll takers shared the same opinion in France. In the United Kingdom, more than six out of 10 respondents said that democracy was working less well than five years ago, according to the poll which was carried out by Ipsos in September.
The results reveal widespread angst about the state of democracy ahead of major votes in the United States, the U.K, and the European Union in the year ahead â as well as mixed views of the 27-member union.
In all but one of the countries â which also included Croatia, Italy, Poland and Sweden â about half of voters reported being âdissatisfiedâ with the way democracy was working, while majorities agreed with the statement that the system is âriggedâ in favor of the rich and powerful, and that âradical changeâ was needed.
Only in Sweden did a clear majority, 58 percent, say they were satisfied with how the system of government was working.
Among EU countries, the survey revealed deeply contrasting views on the state of the Union. A majority of respondents in the countries surveyed said they were in favor of the EU, but a plurality in all the countries said they were dissatisfied with the state of democracy at the EU level, while only tiny minorities reported feeling they had any influence over EU decisions.
Those views were offset by higher levels of satisfaction at the way democracy worked at the local level.
Only in Croatia was satisfaction with democracy at the EU level, at 26 percent, higher than it was for democracy at the national level, at 21 percent.
The results of the survey will give EU leaders food for thought as they gear up for European Parliament elections. While voters elect the Parliament directly, the choice of who gets the top jobs â such as president of the European Commission, the blocâs executive branch, or the head of the EU Council, which gathers heads of state and government â is indirect. National leaders pick their nominees, which are then submitted to the Parliament for conformation.
In recent years, EU-level political parties have been trying to make the process more democratic by asking leaders to give top jobs to the lead candidates, or Spitzenkandidaten, from the party that wins the most votes in the election. But that system was ignored by leaders after the last election, when they rejected the lead candidate of the conservative European Peopleâs Party, Manfred Weber, in favor of current Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
While all the major parties say they are committed to proposing lead candidates ahead of the next EP election, leaders havenât publicly committed to follow the system.
âThese findings suggest that a key challenge for the EU ahead of the 2024 European Parliament elections will be to leverage continuing support for the EU project to help restore positive perceptions of EU institutions, agencies and bodies,â Christine Tresignie, managing director of Ipsos European public affairs, said in a statement.
The poll was carried out September 21-30 via an online random probability survey. Respondents aged 16 and over were questioned in Croatia, France, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom, while in the United States adults aged 18 and over were polled.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor OrbĂĄn regularly pushes the EU to the cliff edge, but diplomats are panicking that his hostility to Ukraine is now about to finally kick the bloc over the precipice.
A brewing political crisis is set to boil over at a summit in mid-December when EU leaders are due to make a historic decision on bringing Ukraine into the 27-nation club and seal a key budget deal to throw a âŹ50 billion lifeline to Kyivâs flailing war economy. The meeting is supposed to signal to the U.S. that, despite the political distraction over the war in the Middle East, the EU is fully committed to Ukraine.Â
Those hopes look likely to be knocked off course by OrbĂĄn, a strongman who cultivates close ties with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and who is widely seen as having undermined democracy and rule of law at home. He is demanding the whole political and financial process should be put on ice until leaders agree to a wholesale review of EU support for Kyiv.
That gives EU leaders a massive headache. Although Hungary only represents 2 percent of the EU population, OrbĂĄn can hold the bloc hostage as it is supposed to act unanimously on big strategic decisions â and they hardly come bigger than initiating accession talks with Ukraine.
Itâs far from the first time OrbĂĄn is throwing a spanner in the works of the EUâs sausage making machine. Indeed, he has been the most vocal opponent of sanctions against Russia ever since Putinâs annexation of Crimea in 2014. But this time is different, EU diplomats and officials said.Â
âWe are heading toward a major crisis,â one EU official said, who was granted anonymity to discuss confidential deliberations. One senior EU diplomat warned this could become âone of the most difficult European Councils.â Â
In theory, there is a nuclear option on the table â one that would cut Hungary out of EU political decisions â but countries feel that emergency cord is toxic because of the precedent it would deliver on EU disunity and fragmentation. For now, the European leaders seem to be taking to their usual approach of fawning courtship of the EUâs bad boy to try to coax out a compromise.
European Council President Charles Michel, whose job it is to forge deals between the 27 leaders, is leading the softly-softly pursuit of a compromise. He travelled to Budapest earlier this week for an intense two hour discussion with OrbĂĄn. While the meeting did not reach an immediate break-through, it was useful to understand OrbĂĄnâs concerns, another EU official said.
Itâs all about the money
Some EU diplomats interpret OrbĂĄnâs threats as a strategy to raise pressure on the European Commission, which is holding back âŹ13 billion in EU funds for Hungary over concerns that the country is falling foul of the EUâs standards on rule of law.Â
Others however said itâs a mistake not to look beyond the immediate transactional tactics. OrbĂĄn has long been questioning the EUâs Ukraine strategy, but was largely ignored or portrayed as a puppet for Russian President Vladimir Putin.Â
âWe were watching it, amazed, but maybe we didnât take enough time to actually listen,â a second senior EU diplomat acknowledged.
Some EU diplomats interpret OrbĂĄnâs threats as a strategy to raise pressure on the European Commission | Peter Kohalmi/AFP via Getty Images
Increasingly, the leader of the Fidesz party has been isolated in Brussels. Previous peacemakers such as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel or other OrbĂĄn-whisperers from the so-called VisegrĂĄd Four â Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic â are no longer there. The expected comeback of Donald Tusk for Poland, a pro-EU and anti-Russian leader, will only heighten OrbĂĄnâs status as the lonely, defiant hold-out.
âThere is no one left to talk sense into OrbĂĄn,â a third EU official said. âHe is now undermining the EU from within.â
Guns on the table
As frustration grows, the EU is weighing how to deal with the Hungarian threats.
In theory, Brussels could come out with the big guns and use the EUâs so-called Article 7 procedure against Hungary, used when a country is considered at risk of breaching the blocâs core values. The procedure is sometimes called the EUâs ânuclear optionâ as it provides for the most serious political sanction the bloc can impose on a member country â the suspension of the right to vote on EU decisions.
Because of those far-reaching consequences, there is reticence to roll out this option against Hungary. When EU leaders brought in âdiplomatic sanctionsâ against Austria in 2000, the day after the party of Austrian far-right leader Jörg Haider entered the coalition, it backfired. Many Austrians were angry at EU interference and anti-EU sentiment soared. Sanctions were lifted later that year.Â
There is now a widespread feeling in Brussels that Article 7 could create a similar backlash in Budapest, fueling populism and in the longer term potentially even trigger a snowball effect leading to an unintended Hungarian exit of the bloc.
Given those fears, diplomats are doubling down on ways to work around a Hungarian veto.
One option is to split the âŹ50 billion from 2024 to 2027 for Ukraine into smaller amounts on an annual basis, three officials said. But critics warn this option would fall short in the goal of offering greater predictability and certainty to Ukraineâs struggling public finances. It would also send a bad political signal: if the EU canât make a long term commitment to Ukraine, then how can it ask the U.S. to do the same?Â
The same dilemma goes for the EUâs planned military aid. EU countries could use bilateral deals rather than EU structures such as the European Peace Facility to send military aid to Ukraine â effectively freezing out Budapest. Yet this would mean that the EU as such plays no role in providing weapons, an admission of impotence that is hard to swallow and hurts EU unity toward Kyiv.
Itâs âobviousâ that concern is growing about EU political support for Ukraine, Lithuaniaâs Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told POLITICO. âAt first itâs Hungary, now, more countries are doubtful whether thereâs a path.âÂ
Asked about Hungaryâs objections, Ruslan Stefanchuk, the chairman of Ukraineâs parliament, told POLITICO: âUkraine is going to the European Union and Ukraine has followed all the recommendations (âŠ) I want to make sure that all member states respect the progress that Ukraine has demonstrated.âÂ
The long gameÂ
That leaves one other default option, and itâs an EU classic: kicking the can down the road and pushing key decisions on Ukraine policy to early next year. Apart from Hungary, Berlin is also struggling with the consequences of Germanyâs top court wiping out âŹ60 billion from a climate fund â thus creating a huge hole in its budget.Â
Hungarian PM Viktor OrbĂĄn, center, during a summit in Brussels | Nicolas Maeterlinck/Belga via AFP/Getty Images
Such a delay would also lead to stories about fractured EU unity, said another EU diplomat. But âin the real world it wouldnât be a problem because the Ukraine budget is fine until March 2024.â
But for others, buying time is tricky. Europe is heading to the polls in June next year, which makes sensitive decision-making harder. âGetting closer to the elections will not make things easier,â the second EU official said, while stressing that fast decisions are key for Ukraine. âFor Zelenskyy, this is existential to keep up morale on the battlefield.â
Both, like another official quoted in this story, were granted anonymity to speak freely.
Increasingly, Brussels is also worried about OrbĂĄnâs long game.Â
There is a constant stream of attacks coming from Budapest against Brussels, on issues ranging from democratic deficit to culture wars over the EUâs migration policy. The latest example is an aggressive euroskeptic advertising campaign featuring posters targeting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen herself. The posters show von der Leyen next to Alexander Soros, the son of George Soros, chair of the Open Society Foundations, with the line: âLetâs not dance to the tune they whistle!â
âNobody feels comfortable given whatâs going on in Hungary,â Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn told reporters on Thursday. âItâs very difficult to digest given the campaign that heâs leading against the EU and against the president. When heâs asking his people many things, heâs not asking if the Union is so much worse than USSR why is he not leaving?â
But OrbĂĄn seems more eager to hijack the EU from within rather than jump ship, as the U.K. did. Increasingly, he also feels the wind is blowing his way after the recent election results in Slovakia and the Netherlands, said KrekĂł, where the winners are on the same page as him when it comes to Ukraine, migration or gender issues.
Hungaryâs prime minister was quick to congratulate the winner of the Dutch election, the vehemently anti-EU Geert Wilders, saying that âthe winds of change are here.âÂ
âOrbĂĄn plays the long game,â the third EU official said. âWith Wilders, one or two more far-right leaders in Europe and a potential return of Trump he could soon be less isolated than we all think.â
Gregorio Sorgi, Nicolas Camut, Stuart Lau and Jakob Hanke Vela contributed reporting.
CORRECTION: This story has been amended to correct a quote on Ukraineâs budget.
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Barbara Moens, Nicholas Vinocur and Jacopo Barigazzi
BRUSSELS â Outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is emerging as the front-runner to be the new NATO chief, but faces resistance in Washington from lawmakers who accuse the Netherlands of underspending on defense on his watch, and from others who think it’s time for a woman at the top.
In what’s shaping up to be at least a three-person race, Rutte is considered a strong favorite, according to two European officials and a diplomat granted anonymity to talk about internal deliberations.
“He’s certainly a heavyweight, he’s a very good candidate,” Poland’s Ambassador to NATO Tomasz Szatkowski said at an event hosted by POLITICO Pro Defense on Tuesday.
One of the officials said the longtime Dutch leader had won the support of “senior U.S. and German officials.”
France, another crucial decision-maker, is also favoring Rutte, driven primarily by his personal rapport with President Emmanuel Macron, who was one of Rutte’s earliest cheerleaders in his quest for the NATO top job.
âThat Macron and Rutte appreciate each other is no secret,â said a French diplomat.
However, some American lawmakers adamantly oppose Rutte, as the Netherlands has consistently failed to meet NATO’s defense spending target of 2 percent of gross domestic product.
That pits him unfavorably against Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who signaled interest in the NATO job while in Washington last week. Her government agreed to raise defence spending to 3 percent of GDP for 2024-2027, from 2.85 percent this year. Tallinn has also been an outsize supporter of Ukraine in terms of weaponry.
The underdog is Latvia’s Foreign Minister KriĆĄjÄnis KariĆĆĄ, whose announcement on Sunday that he was running was even a surprise to some in Riga, according to a diplomat.
The candidacies of Kallas and KariĆĆĄ ruffle some Western European feathers â still smarting from the intense criticism they faced from Baltic nations that they are insufficiently supportive of Ukraine and too fearful to challenge Russia.
The White House was coy when asked whether U.S. President Joe Biden prefers Rutte.
“Weâre not going to get into internal deliberations over the next secretary general,” said National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson. “We look forward to working closely with allies to identify a secretary general who can lead the alliance at this critical time for transatlantic security.â
Penny-pincher
For some, though, the record of burden sharing in a secretary-general candidate’s home country does matter politically, and Washington is scrutinizing that closely.
U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska and senior of member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Rutte “should be unequivocally disqualified” over his country’s record on NATO burden sharing. He said there is “deep bipartisan frustration in the U.S. about NATO members not pulling their weight.”
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas signaled interest in the NATO job while in Washington last week | Leon Neal/Getty Images
The Netherlands has a poor track record. In 2014 it spent only 1.15 percent of its GDP on defense, while the alliance has a 2 percent spending goal. This year, The Hague will spend 1.7 percent of GDP and has agreed to spend 2.03 percent in 2024 and 2.01 percent in 2025.
Ahead of July’s NATO summit in Vilnius, Sullivan led a bipartisan group of 35 senators in writing a letter to Biden urging him to ensure NATO countries meet their defense spending commitments. That tally â which amounts to more than a third of the U.S. Senate â hints at the potent politics of burden sharing in Washington.
Congress’ ongoing negotiations over its annual defense legislation include a provision from Sullivan that would require the Pentagon to prioritize NATO members that hit the 2 percent target when making decisions about U.S. military basing, training, and exercises.
Some in Biden’s own Democratic Party also believe it’s time for a woman to run NATO.
âIâve long thought it was time the allies appoint the first woman NATO secretary general,” Senate NATO Observer Group Co-Chair Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, said in a statement.
“That said, itâs critical that support for NATO remains strong and bipartisan in the Senate and for that to happen, the successor for this important position should hail from a country that is meeting the 2 percent defense spending commitment, or has a robust plan in place to meet that goal, which was agreed to by all allies in Vilnius,” she added.
With NATO helping coordinate membersâ efforts to help Ukraine fight Russia, there are also calls for someone from the eastern flank of the alliance to become the next leader.
“Maybe at some point it is also [the] right time for the alliance to look at the region of Eastern Europe,” Ukraine’s Ambassador to NATO Natalia Galibarenko told POLITICO. “So my preference … would be at some point to see [a] secretary-general representing Eastern Europe.”
Such as Kallas?
“Why not?” said the Ukrainian envoy.
With additional reporting from Clea Caulcutt. and Joshua Posaner. Joe Gould and Alexander Ward reported from Washington.
A rare Bronze Age spearhead was recently unearthed at a construction site in Poland, officials said.
The well-preserved artifact was found during the leveling of a site in Lubycza KrĂłlewska, a small town on the Poland-Ukraine border, according to a Nov. 14 news release from Science in Poland.
The 7-inch-long flint weapon, which has no visible signs of damage, dates to between 1990 and 1750 B.C.
It was likely created by an expert craftsman belonging to the Mierzanowice culture, a society that developed during the Early Bronze Age in Poland, officials said.
The well-preserved blade is about seven inches long, officials said.
Much of what is known about the Mierzanowice culture comes from its gravesites, which have been found throughout southeastern Poland, according to a 2019 study published in the Polish archaeological journal Sprawozdania Archeologiczne.
Shell beads, bone pendants and ceramic vessels have been found inside the graves, indicating a rich and complex culture, according to the study.
Spearheads and other artifacts associated with the Mierzanowice are typically found near their gravesites, perhaps as gifts for the dead, officials said. So, itâs unusual to find one on its own.
After additional analysis, the flint weapon will be sent to a regional museum.
Google Translate was used to translate a news release from Science in Poland.
As the world’s eyes turn from Ukraine to Israel and Gaza, NATO countries on the alliance’s eastern edge are staring down Russia and strengthening their presence on the bloc’s “most exposed” flank.
Lithuania, Poland, and other NATO nations close to Russia and Belarus are bolstering defense and their “deterrence posture on the Eastern flank,” including protection for the contentious SuwaĆki Gap, Vilnius’ defense minister, Arvydas AnuĆĄauskas, told Newsweek.
A small strip of land close to the Polish-Lithuanian border that links Belarus to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, the SuwaĆki Gap is a constant, rumbling concern in eastern Europe. With Poland and Lithuania staunch allies of Ukraineâand Belarus firmly standing with Russiaâthe SuwaĆki Gap has been intermittently described as NATO’s weak point and the alliance’s most fortified boundary.
“Together with our allies, we are creating [the] right set of capabilities and plans to defend every inch of NATO’s territory,” AnuĆĄauskas said. Lithuania is investing in its armed forces and its supplies and NATO’s presence close to the Gap, he added, although the strategically important strip of land will “remain a fundamental challenge.”
Polish (R) and Romanian (L) soldiers near Szypliszki village, located in the so-called SuwaĆki Gap on July 7, 2022. Lithuania, Poland, and other NATO nations close to Russia and Belarus are bolstering defense and “deterrence posture on the Eastern flank,” including protection for the contentious SuwaĆki Gap, Vilnius’ defense minister, Arvydas AnuĆĄauskas, told Newsweek. WOJTEK RADWANSKI/AFP via Getty Images
“In geographical terms, the Baltic States remain as the most exposed [of] NATO’s territory, which requires specific measures to ensure credible deterrence and defense,” AnuĆĄauskas explained.
Russia used Belarus as a springboard to launch its invasion of Ukraine 20 months ago, and reignited fears over the SuwaĆki Gap earlier this year when exiled Wagner mercenaries moved en masse to Belarusian bases close to it.
In the midst of the heightened tensions around Belarus, Poland and Lithuania, a Russian lawmaker told Moscow-controlled state television that Wagner forces could be in Belarus to seize the SuwaĆki Gap. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko also commented in mid-July that Wagner mercenaries arriving and training in Belarus after leaving Russia were itching to move “westward” towards the country’s border with Poland.
The main concern for the Baltic nations is that Russia could mount some form of military incursion into NATO via the Gap from Belarus, burrowing into Europe via the strip of land on the way to Kaliningrad.
“It facilitates the possible land routes for NATO troops in between Central Europe and the Baltic States,” AnuĆĄauskas said. With Belarus “basically integrated into Russia’s military planning,” as AnuĆĄauskas put it, it is not hard to see how Moscow could move a large number of its troops through it into NATO heartlands, while having the ability to resupply them via the port at Kaliningrad.
Any incursion of this type on a NATO country would likely spark a collective, emphatic response under the alliance’s Article 5, which regards an attack on a member as an attack on all other member states.
But despite the worries of the NATO governments close to the Gap, the Kremlin is not inclined to do so, not least because of NATO’s attention on the territory, Western experts say.
It is “baffling” to consider the Gap a significant possible flashpoint now, and it is very hard to see how Russia could, or would want to, mount such an attack on NATO, Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at the Chatham House think tank, told Newsweek.
For the moment, Russia has neither the intent nor the capability to mount such an assault on NATO, agreed Emily Ferris, a research fellow specializing in Russia at the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank. It is “quite unrealistic” to imagine Russia could launch a ground operation in the Gap as it fights its war in Ukraine, she told Newsweek.
“Russian troops are so embroiled in eastern Ukraine at the moment, but very hard to see where there would be even breathing room for them to consider a land assault on another country,” she said. It would “be a declaration of war in Europe” that Moscow shows all the signs of wanting to avoid, she continued. And while Kaliningrad, and the Baltic Russian bases there, may be “inherently vulnerable,” this is balanced out by Russia’s significant military presence and missile systems based there, she added.
“The idea of attacking a NATO state, I think, is a red lineâeven for Moscow,” Ferris said.
The Wagner troops that loomed on the alliance’s eastern flank have retreated as a threat in recent weeks; reports have suggested their Belarusian bases have been dismantled, and many fighters have returned to Ukraine.
But the geography hasn’t changed, and the NATO countries do not forget the “range of provocations from Kaliningrad Oblast and Belarusian sides” described by AnuĆĄauskas. The Wagner formations may have faded, but Lithuania remembers “orchestrated migration waves” and “increased tactical nuclear threatening” over the last two years, he said.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
BERLIN â Facing war on two fronts â in Ukraine and in the Middle East â Kyiv is calling on Western democracies to ramp up investment in weapons, saying that arms factory output worldwide is falling miles short of what is needed.
In an interview, Ukraineâs Minister for Strategic Industries Oleksandr Kamyshin told POLITICO Western countries needed to accelerate production of missiles, shells and military drones as close to frontlines as possible.
âThe free world should be producing enough to protect itself,” Kamyshin said, on a mission to the German capital to persuade arms producers to invest in war-ravaged Ukraine. “That’s why we have to produce more and better weapons to stay safe.”
Current factory capacity was woeful, he argued. âIf you get together all the worldwide capacities for weapons production, for ammunition production, that will be not enough for this war,â said Kamyshin of the state of play along Ukraine’s more than 1,000 kilometers of active frontline.
As the Israel Defense Forces continue to pummel Gaza and fighting gathers pace along the contact line in Ukraine, armies are burning through ammunition at a rate not seen in decades. Policymakers are asking whether Western allies can support both countries with air defense systems and artillery at once.
The answer, says Kamyshin, is to start building out production facilities now. âWhat happens in Israel now shows and proves that the defense industry globally is a destination for investments for decades,â he said.
Since Russia’s war on Ukraine started in February 2022, western governments have been funneling arms to Kyiv. That includes hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, armored vehicles and other equipment.
But as the grind of war continues, Kyiv has changed tack â appointing Kamyshin, the former boss of Ukraine’s state railway â to the post of minister for strategic industries. Ukraine, formerly a major military hub in the Soviet Union, is now trying to increase output of armored vehicles, ammunition and air defense systems, he said, and wants Western partners to invest.
A key step is expected on Tuesday, when German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal will announce a new joint venture between Rheinmetall and Ukroboronprom, a Ukrainian defense company, Kamyshin said.
In late September, Germanyâs Federal Cartel Office gave the green light to the cooperation agreement after a review that found the proposed venture âdoes not result in any overlaps in terms of competition in Germany.â
Building local
Last March, EU countries pledged to send a millionartillery rounds to Ukraine over the following year as part of a program to lift production. Ukraine may need as much as 1.5 million shells annually to sustain its war effort, a daunting task that Kamyshin hopes he can help, at least partially, with domestic output.
In total, Ukraine has received over 350 self-propelled and towed artillery systems from NATO countries and Australia. Combined with Soviet-era pieces in Ukrainian stocks prior to the Russian invasion, Kyiv has approximately 1,600 pieces of artillery in service â but must cover a massive front.
Ukraine has received over 350 self-propelled and towed artillery systems from NATO countries and Australia | Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images
And although the deepening of the German-Ukrainian defense relationship is a boon for Kyivâs war effort, the enemy on the battlefield â Russia â can also leverage its own international relationships for war materiel, and has been quick to agree military hardware deals with the likes of Iran and North Korea.
Earlier this month, reports pointed out Pyongyang likely transferred a sizable shipment of artillery ammunition to Russia. The details of the deal are secret, but the shipment came on the heels of a visit to Pyongyang by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in turn made a trip to Russia by rail and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia previously struck a deal with Tehran for Iranian loitering munitions that hammered cities across Ukraine last winter in an intentional targeting of civilian infrastructure.
The increasingly international scope of sourcing for the war in Ukraine is not limited to non-NATO countries. Poland recently started taking delivery of tanks, howitzers, rocket launchers and light attack aircraft from South Korea, a nod to how quickly Seoul can ramp up production affordably.
For Kamyshin, the key was to make plans for the long term.
“This war can be for decades,” he said. “[The] Russians can come back always.”
WARSAW â After eight years of rule by the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, Polish voters on Sunday chose change â giving three opposition democratic parties enough seats to form a new government.
So now is the way clear to bring Poland back into the European mainstream after dallying as an illiberal democracy?
Not so fast.
The countryâs likely ruling coalition faces years of very hard political graft to undo the changes wrought by PiS since 2015.
Here are five main takeaways from an election that will shake Poland and Europe.
1. Job No. 1 â creating a new government
The final result puts PiS in first place, with35.4 percent, according to a preliminary vote count, and 194 seats, but thatâs too few for a majority in the 460-member lower house of parliament.
âWe will definitely try to build a parliamentary majority,â said Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
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.
If that fails, parliament then chooses a nominee for PM.
That means if Duda sticks with PiS, it could be mid-December before the three opposition parties â Civic Coalition, the Third Way and the Left â get a chance to form a government. Together, they have248 seats in the new legislature.
There are already voices calling on the opposition to short-circuit that by striking a coalition deal with the signatures of at least 231 MPs, demonstrating to Duda that they have a lock on forming a government.
Once in power, the opposition will find that ruling isnât easy.
What unites the three is their distaste for PiS, but their programs differ markedly.
Civic Coalition, the largest party under the leadership of Donald Tusk, a former prime minister and European Council president, is part of the center-right European Peopleâs Party in the European Parliament. But it also contains smaller parties from different groupings like the Greens.
The Third Way is a coalition of two parties â Poland 2050, founded by TV host Szymon HoĆownia, and the Polish Peopleâs Party (PSL), the countryâs oldest political force representing the peasantry. Poland 2050 is part of Renew while PSL is in the EPP. The grouping skews center right, which means itâs likely to clash with the Left on issues like loosening draconian abortion laws.
The Left is in turn an amalgamation of three small groupings whose leaders have often been at daggers drawn.
2. Thereâs a mighty purge coming
A non-PiS government will have a very difficult time passing legislation as it will not have the three-fifths of parliamentary votes needed to override Dudaâs veto; his term ends in 2025.
The new administrationâs first job will be cleaning PiS appointees out of controling positions in government, the media and state-controlled corporations. Poland has a long tradition of governments rewarding loyalists with cushy jobs, but PiS took it to an extreme not seen since communist times.
Most of those people face dismissal.
âWe will fire all members of supervisory boards and boards of directors. We will conduct new recruitment in transparent competitions, in which competence, not family and party connections, will be decisive,â says the Civic Coalition electoral program.
âWeâll end the rule of the fat cats in state companies,â says the Leftâs program.
The immediate market reaction was positive, with energy company Orlen up more than 8 percent on the Warsaw Stock Exchange on Monday, and the biggest bank, PKO BP, up over 11 percent.
Polandâs state media became PiSâs propaganda arm â along with a chain of newspapers bought by state-controlled refiner Orlen â hammering Tusk as the traitorous âHerr Tuskâ more loyal to Germany than Poland. Not a lot of people in the media are likely to survive whatâs coming, if the new government succeeds in its goal of shutting down the National Media Council â a body stuffed with PiS loyalists that manages public media.
Polandâs state media became PiSâs propaganda arm, hammering Tusk as the traitorous âHerr Tuskâ more loyal to Germany than Poland | Zbignieuw Meissner/EFE via EPA
But losing a job isnât the worst of whatâs awaiting many.
3. Go directly to jail
When Tuskâs party last won power from a short-lived PiS government in 2007, the winners treated their political rivals with kid gloves and hardly anyone was prosecuted. This time the gloves are off.
In its political program, Civic Coalition promises to prosecute anyone for âbreaking the constitution and rule of law.â
It aims at Duda, Morawiecki, PiS leader JarosĆaw KaczyĆski and Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, Central Bank Governor Adam GlapiĆski for mismanaging the fight against inflation, and Orlen CEO Daniel Obajtek for heading a controversial buyout that saw the sale of part of a large refinery to foreign interests.
Expect prosecutors to track down the numerous scandals that have hit PiS over the years â from the government of former Prime Minister Beata SzydĆo refusing to publish verdicts issued by the Constitutional Tribunal, to Duda refusing to swear in properly elected judges to the tribunal.
There are also dodgy contracts issued during the panicky early phase of the COVID pandemic, millions spent on a 2020 election by mail that had not been approved by parliament, state companies setting up funds that poured money into PiS-backed projects, a bribes-for-visas scandal, and many more.
Many people with corporate jobs kicked back part of their salaries to PiS. Additionally, state-controlled companies directed a torrent of advertising money to often niche pro-government newspapers while neglecting larger independent media.
All of those transactions are likely to be examined and â if found to be against the interests of the corporation and its shareholders â could result in criminal charges.
The coalition promises to âhold responsibleâ people âguilty of civil service crimes.â
4. Reaching out to Brussels
Tusk is a Brussels animal â he spent five years there as European Council president and was also chief of the European Peopleâs party.
PiSâs departure marks a sea change with the EU â which spent eight years tangling with Warsaw over radical changes to the judicial system aimed at bringing judges under tighter political control.
The European Commission moved to end Polandâs voting rights as an EU member under a so-called Article 7 procedure, blocked the payout of âŹ36 billion in loans and grants from the blocâs pandemic recovery fund, sued Poland at the Court of Justice of the EU, while the European Parliament passed resolutions decrying Warsawâs backsliding on democratic principles.
The European Commission moved to end Polandâs voting rights as an EU member under a so-called Article 7 procedure | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images
âThe day after the election, I will go and unblock the money,â Tusk vowed before the vote.
Although Tusk said all thatâs required is âa little goodwill and competence,â itâs going to be tougher than heâs letting on. The PiS government tried to unlock the money by passing a partial rollback of its judicial reforms, but theyâre stuck in the PiS-controlled Constitutional Tribunal. Passing any new law will require Dudaâs signature and without that, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen doesnât have the legal basis to acknowledge that Poland has met the milestones it needs to achieve to get the money.
âPerhaps the strategy of Tusk will be to try to reopen the negotiation on the milestones and kind of striking a new deal with the European Commission,â said Jakub Jaraczewski, a research coordinator for Democracy Reporting International, a Berlin-based NGO.
5. Making waves in Europe
PiS made a lot of enemies â and the new government will try to undo that damage.
Relations with Berlin have been foul, with KaczyĆski pounding the German government for wanting to undermine Polish independence and accusing Berlin of aiming to strike a deal with Moscow âbecause it is in their economic interest as well as that of their national character: the pursuit of domination at any cost.â KaczyĆski and other PiS politicians have also constantly harried Germany for not coming clean about wartime atrocities against Poland.
Tusk has been careful not to touch that issue for fear of harming his partyâs electoral chances, but heâs historically had good relations with Berlin â although Poland, no matter under which government, is a big and often prickly country thatâs not an easy partner.
Tusk blamed PiS for the downturn in relations with Ukraine after the Polish government restricted Ukrainian grain imports not to annoy Polish farmers and to say it would not send more weapons to Kyiv. Tusk called it âstabbing a political knife in Ukraineâs back, while the battles on the frontline are being decided.â
While Brussels, Berlin and Kyiv will be breathing a sigh of relief at the change of direction in Warsaw, things are likely to be a little more tense in Budapest. Poland and Hungary had a mutual defense pact, blocking the needed unanimity in the European Council to move on the Article 7 procedure.
Without KaczyĆski to protect him, Hungarian PM Viktor OrbĂĄn is much more exposed. There are other populists in Europe, like Italyâs Giorgia Meloni and Robert Fico, who looks likely to take over in Slovakia, but they donât face Article 7 procedures and their countries have tight relations with the EU â making it difficult to see why theyâd risk that to go out on a limb to save OrbĂĄn.
Paola Tamma contributed reporting.
This article has been updated with the final election results.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) â Poland is holding an election Sunday that many view as its most important one since the 1989 vote that toppled communism. At stake are the health of the nationâs democracy, its legal stance on LGBTQ+ rights and abortion, and the foreign alliances of a country on NATOâs eastern flank that has been a crucial ally to Ukraine.
Political experts say the election will not be fully fair after eight years of governing by a conservative nationalist party that has eroded checks and balances to gain more control over state institutions, including the courts, public media and the electoral process itself.
Opponents of the ruling Law and Justice party fear it could be their last chance to preserve the constitutional system won at great cost through the struggle of many Poles, from former President Lech Walesa to the millions who supported his Solidarity movement.
The election âwill decide the future of Poland as a country of liberal democracy, a system that has been a guarantor of Polish success for the last three decades,â the editor of the Rzeczpospolita newspaper, Boguslaw Chrabota, wrote in a Friday editorial.
Supporters of the ruling party, however, are afraid that if Law and Justice is voted out, the opposition would take the country in a more liberal direction, including with new laws legalizing abortion and civil unions for same-sex partners.
Supporters of the Law and Justice party are seen during of a campaign rally in Sandomierz, Poland on 13 October, 2023. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
NurPhoto via Getty Images
âIâm afraid that Iâll wake up after the elections and there will be such a change that, for example, abortion will be promoted (and) LGBT,â said civil servant Bozena Zych, 57, after leaving a Catholic church located in a hipster area of Warsaw filled with gay-friendly establishments.
Zych said she went to the Church of the Holiest Savior with a friend to pray for Law and Justice to win a third-straight term. Churches, even Polandâs holiest Jasna Gora shrine in Czestochowa, have held prayers in recent weeks for candidates who support Christian values.
Citizens who want a more liberal Poland also mobilized with two massive marches this year. Some interviewed in recent days by The Associated Press became very emotional or fought back tears as they described what they regard as corruption, democratic backsliding, propaganda and bitter divisions in Polish society since Law and Justice came to power in 2015.
âWhat has happened in Poland is a nightmare,â said Maryla Kowalewska, 75. âLetâs hope there is a total change in this country.â
Recent polls show Law and Justice has more support than any other single party, but not enough to reach the majority in Parliament it would need to govern alone. It could be forced to seek support from a far-right party, Confederation, that is hostile to Ukraine.
The polls show that three opposition groups â Civic Coalition, Third Way and New Left â could together get a majority of seats in Parliament. The largest is the centrist Civic Coalition led by Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister and former European Union president.
Tusk has vowed to restore the rule of law and to rebuild ties with the EU that became severely strained under Law and Justice. The EU is withholding billions of euros in COVID-19 pandemic recovery funds from Warsaw, citing rule of law violations.
Small shifts for or against the smaller parties could significantly impact what coalitions will be possible after election day.
âSo we have this situation of two sides who think that these are very high-stakes elections, two sides very determined and energetic. The emotions are very high, but the playing field is not even,â said Jacek Kucharczyk, the president of the Institute of Public Affairs, a Warsaw-based think tank.
The main reason for the imbalance is Law and Justiceâs control of taxpayer-funded state media, which it uses to constantly bash opponents, Kucharczyk argued. But other factors could play a role in the electionâs outcome, including the partyâs political control over the electoral administration and the chamber of the Supreme Court that will validate the election.
Amid the huge interest in the election, more than 600,000 Poles abroad registered to vote, three times more than in 2015, the Foreign Ministry.
The ministry also said it had âimmediately dismissedâ its spokesman, Lukasz Jasina, for saying that not all polling stations would be able to count all the votes before the deadline for submitting them, which would cause them to be invalidated. The ministry said in a statement late Friday that it was prepared to carry out the vote abroad, and that Jasina was fired for spreading âfalse information.â
There is also a high level of state ownership in the Polish economy, and the ruling party has built up a system of patronage, handing out thousands of jobs and contracts to its loyalists.
Wojciech Przybylski, editor-in-chief of Visegrad Insight, a policy journal focused on Central Europe, said the practice threatens the ability of the middle class to advance socially âwithout special connections to politics.â
That could in turn could threaten the foundations of the âeconomic miracleâ Poland has experienced in the post-communist era, he said. The country is now the EUâs sixth-largest economy.
Law and Justiceâs nationalist policies also have harmed Polandâs relations with key allies. While Poland has been a staunch ally of neighboring Ukraine since Russia invaded and a transit hub for Western weapons, relations chilled over the Ukrainian grain that entered Polandâs market.
With tensions rising, and as the Confederation partyâs numbers grew, Polandâs prime minister said his country was no longer sending weapons to Kyiv.
âThey quarreled with everyone, with the EU, with NATO, with everyone,â said Ludmila, a 68-year-old who opposes Law and Justice. She wouldnât give her last name, saying that the country was moving in an authoritarian direction and she didnât feel safe doing so. âThis is unacceptable, it cannot continue like this.â
âPoland will be as lonely as in 1939,â the year World War II broke out, she added.
Poland will vote on October 15 in parliamentary elections that will send 460 MPs to the Sejm, the lower house of parliament.
A bitter campaign, pitching nationalist-populist forces against centrist ranks, illustrates a deeply polarised society, say analysts.
Runners and riders
Polls suggest five entities have a good chance of crossing the threshold â 5 percent for parties, 8 percent for electoral coalitions â to enter parliament.
Currently leading with support of around 35 percent is the nationalist conservative United Right (ZP) coalition, which is dominated by Law and Justice (PiS). De facto party leader, the reclusive Jaroslaw Kaczynski hopes to win an historic third term.
Generous social benefits to families and pensioners provide PiS with a strong base, from which it has launched controversial reforms of the electoral system, courts and media. Critics accuse it of democratic backsliding, and a rule-of-law standoff with the EU has seen 100 billion euros ($105.24bn) of funds frozen, while the ruling party is also accused of abusing refugees and migrants, LGBT and womenâs rights.
In the opposite corner is the centrist Civic Coalition (KO), led by Donald Tusk, former PM and president of the European Council. As the vote approached, the alliance â built, say its members, to save Poland from PiSâs increasing authoritarianism and destruction of democracy â was trailing by 5-6 percent. [Seems Civic Platform (PO) is more common? (and weâve used it before) Kindly note that KO also appears later in the explainer]
The liberal-conservative Third Way coalition, left-wing Lewica coalition, and far-right Confederation are competing for third place in the polls with around 10 percent, and all could play a key role in the formation of the next government.
What are the main campaign issues?
PiS has stressed that it offers stability, noting it has steered Poland through the pandemic, Russian invasion of Ukraine, and cost of living crisis better than many of its neighbours.
Just ahead of the election, the government raised social benefits further, seeking to shore up support among its key older and rural electorate. While this cohortâs enthusiasm has slipped amid high inflation, PiSâs claim that KO would scrap this generous support and raise the retirement age leaves them with little alternative.
âMany have become dependent on this state support, so this narrative is very effective,â said Dr Jacek Kucharczyk of Warsaw-based think tank Institute of Public Affairs. âItâs essentially massive electoral bribery.â
KOâs Tusk has pledged to mend relations with Brussels, raise incomes and investment in education and healthcare, and frames the vote as crucial for minority and womenâs rights.
But the positive campaign messages are in the minority.
âFor PiS and KO, the campaign is not about winning new voters but mobilising their supporters and demobilising that of their rival,â suggests Ryszard Luczyn from Polish think tank Polityka Insight.
PiS seeks to paint the opposition as a threat to Poland and its traditions. In this narrative, Tusk is an agent of Germany and the EU who will sell the countryâs sovereignty and use LGBT and womenâs rights to topple Polish families.
âWhose flag does Tusk bear in his heart?â Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki asked rhetorically at one rally.
Meanwhile, KO TV spots and leaflets put the focus on PiS scandals and offer a return to ânormalityâ.
And as PiS has warned that Tusk and his masters want to flood Poland with migrants, the opposition party leader has joined it in the gutter, employing anti-migrant rhetoric to try to make the most of a visa-for-cash scandal that flared up in recent weeks.
Seeking to exploit the polarisation that PiS has coaxed, Tusk has promised mass antigovernment rallies he will not allow PiS to increase Polandâs isolation from Western partners but jail its leaders âfor violating the law and the constitutionâ.
The suspicion of Western partners towards PiS has only grown as the party has fought the challenge from Confederation.
Eyeing growing war fatigue, the government has reversed its previously staunch support for Ukraine, blocking grain imports, raising historic grievances, and halting weapons supplies.
âPiS has raised its nationalist rhetoric and policy to compete with Confederation,â says Kucharczyk.
Is the election free and fair?
The ruling party is accused of using Polandâs state apparatus to tip the scales.
PiS has organised a referendum on migration and other favoured topics to run alongside the election.
âItâs a mechanism to mobilise the PiS electorate and provoke anger against the opposition,â according to lawyer and activist Krzysztof Izdebski.
The referendum allows the ruling party to use funds from Polandâs huge state companies, which are out of bounds in the official election campaign.
The launch of a commission to investigate Russian influence in politics is viewed as a direct attack on Tusk and has been challenged by Brussels for âviolating democratic principlesâ.
Critics also point out that PiS has tilted the election system through numerous adjustments over which the European Parliament has expressed âdeep concernâ.
Adjustments to the electoral system have increased the voting power of rural voters, asserts Pawel Marczewski of civil society NGO Batory Foundation.
PiSâs capture of state media produces coverage heavily focused on the ruling party, critics add.
What do the polls say?
Polling trends suggest that neither PiS nor KO â sitting on 28-35 percent â will win enough votes to form a government alone.
KOâs chances of unseating PiS are likely to hinge on the Third Way and Lewica making it into the Sejm, without which it would struggle to assemble a majority. Such an anti-PiS coalition would contain some striking policy differences.
Some form of cooperation with Confederation, or some of its MPs, appears the most likely option for PiS to reach a majority, although it could still be a struggle.
âPiS-Confederation is still favourite to win most seats,â said Stanley Bill, Professor of Polish Studies at the University of Cambridge, âBut what form â if any â their cooperation could take remains uncertain.â
Therefore, Poles could be set for a bout of instability, or even a return to the ballot box next spring.
âA fragile minority government or new elections remain the most likely outcomes,â suggests Andrius Tursa of Teneo Intelligence.
Why does the vote matter?
Kaczynski has pledged to double down on his âreformâ of Polandâs democratic institutions, insisting that âthis time, no one will stop usâ. This drives concern that PiS could cement itself in power.
âIf PiS wins a third term, it will press for even deeper changes in the judicial and election systems that could make it impossible to unseat them,â Kucharczyk warns.
Such plans would also further deepen the antipathy between Warsaw and Brussels, which, following the victory of Robert Fico in Slovakiaâs election, will be wary that a PiS victory would cement Central Europeâs return to nationalist populism, and further complicate efforts to protect democracy and support Ukraine.
However, the union of illiberal states of which Viktor Orban dreams will remain unlikely due to the Hungarian leaderâs pro-Russian approach, which is at odds with PiSâs hawkish stance.
The party denies that it would seek an exit from the EU, which is testament to the support of 90 percent of the population for membership. Warsaw would also maintain a pro-Western foreign policy and the tensions with Ukraine are likely to fade after the vote.
But PiSâs reliability as a partner, and the goodwill itâs staunch support for Kyiv has earned it across the EU and NATO, now appears questionable, say analysts.
A KO-led government would be expected to move Poland closer to Western partners and Ukraine and shore up democratic institutions. However, its bid to pull apart the system PiS has established will face opposition from beneficiaries, including senior officials at state-controlled companies and PiSâs President Andrzej Duda, whose second term runs to 2025.
WARSAW â Itâs squeaky bum time in the EUâs fifth most populous country.
After months of bitter campaigning, scandals, gaffes, attacks and just one debate, the political landscape ahead of Sundayâs general election is pretty much where it was a year ago. Two big parties â the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party and the centrist Civic Coalition â are far ahead and a clutch of smaller parties are straggling far behind.
Itâs a testament to the very deep divisions in Polish society.
The governmentâs backers see the opposition as traitorous sell-outs willing to hand Poland off the Germany (or even Russia) and to turn Poland into an irreligious, gay-friendly dystopia subservient to Brussels and filled with Muslim immigrants.
Opposition backers warn that if Law and Justice wins a third term in office, it will succeed in throttling whatâs left of Polish democracy by completing its takeover of the courts, attack independent media and isolate Poland from its partners in the European Union.
1. What do the polls show?
POLITICOâs Poll of Polls currently has PiS at 37 percent while the Civic Coalition is at 30 percent.
Three smaller parties are also likely to make it into the next parliament.
The center-right Third Way is at 11 percent and the Left is at 10 percent. Both have pledged to join with Civic Coalition to oust PiS from power.
Far-right Confederation is at 9 percent â itâs the only possible coalition partner for Law and Justice, even though its leaders say they wonât do that. The two parties have similar nationalist views, but their economic policies are very different.
2. Why is everyone watching the small parties?
The rules are that parties need to win 5 percent of the vote to get seats in parliament, but coalitions need 8 percent.
Third Way â which unites the Poland 2050 party started by TV host Szymon HoĆownia and the agrarian Polish Peopleâs Party â faces that hurdle. If it falls short, the remaining parties in parliament will get a boost, and that would likely put PiS very close to a stand-alone majority.
âHow smaller parties will fare is crucial,â said Ben Stanley, an associate professor at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw.
3. Are the elections free and fair?
Free maybe, but not very fair.
The government is boosting social spending, and held country-wide picnics where government officials got to hobnob with voters â all financed by the taxpayer. It is also promising rewards to localities with the highest vote total â a contest that only applies in the smaller towns that tend to be strong PiS backers.
The state-controlled media is firmly in the governmentâs camp, despite being obliged by law to be impartial. A chain of newspapers owned by state refiner Orlen is also backing PiS â and papers are even rejecting advertising from opposition parties.
Finally, the government has put forward a referendum with four questions that are designed to harm the opposition and donât actually reflect any real policies. The one on migration reads: âDo you support the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, according to the forced relocation mechanism imposed by European bureaucracy?â
The referendum has no spending limit, so state-owned corporations are pouring vast sums into the campaign. The Polish Post Office even sent leaflets to customers explaining the referendum and helpfully showing a mock ballot marked four times ânoâ â reflecting the governmentâs view.
Finally, the vote count will be supervised by judges appointed by the ruling party.
As of Friday evening, a grouping of foreign election observers was complaining that they still hadnât received accreditation from the electoral commission to watch the vote.
4. What are the mechanics of voting?
All campaigning ends at midnight Friday and media stop all political reporting.
Polls open at 7 a.m. for about 29 million registered voters.
More than 600,000 are registered outside the country â a record. However, a new arbitrary rule limits vote counting in foreign locations to 24 hours; if the count is not finished by then all the ballots in that voting precinct are scrapped. Most foreign voters back the opposition.
The polls close at 9 p.m. and the media will immediately flash the result of exit polls â which cannot be published while voting continues â which historically have been fairly accurate.
The vote count begins immediately, and the national electoral commission will announce a running total. By Monday morning there should be a pretty good idea of the official vote winner.
5. How is a government formed?
The first move will belong to PiS-allied President Andrzej Duda.
Polish president Andrzej Duda | Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty images
In line with Polandâs constitution, the president is free to nominate a prime minister. Duda said traditionally the president chooses a candidate from the overall election winner â which is almost certain to be Law and Justice.
The newly nominated prime minister then has to win an absolute majority of the 460-member Sejm, the lower house of parliament.
If the nominee fails, parliament takes over and has 14 days to nominate a new PM candidate who then has to win another confidence vote.Â
If that ends in no government, the ball is back in the presidentâs court and he has 14 days to pick another nominee. This time the nominee only needs a simple majority in the confidence vote.
6. What happens if no government is formed?
Running through the efforts to win a parliamentary majority could take a couple of months. If that fails, Duda cuts short the parliamentary term and calls a new election, which has to take place within 45 days.Â
That means a new election â and another bitter campaign â sometime in the spring of 2024.
Agnieszka Holland, a celebrated Polish film director, is known for historical dramas about some of humanityâs greatest crimes, such as the Holocaust or the Holodomor famine in Ukraine.
With this yearâs Green Border, the near-present is in her sights, telling the story of the refugees, activists and border guards caught up in 2021âs geopolitical tension on the Polish-Belarusian border, when Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko gave an easy passage to refugees and migrants across the European Unionâs swampy easternmost edge during a freezing winter.
It is Europeâs most politically sensational film of the year, winning the Venice Film Festivalâs Special Jury Prize and provoking an unprecedented backlash among Polandâs nationalist government.
One minister said the film demonised Poles and that it was akin to Nazi propaganda. President Andrzej Duda called it âanti-Polishâ.
As Poland heads to the polls on Sunday, Green Border, lauded by critics worldwide, is still topping the Polish box office.
Al Jazeera spoke with Holland about her film, politics, and the coming vote.
Al Jazeera: Your film has been described as a gift to the ruling right-wing populist Law and Justice party ahead of a narrowly fought election. Is it?
Agnieszka Holland: My goal was, very simply, like in my other movies which touched on crimes against humanity, to show the fate and destiny and the choices of ordinary people which are made in the turnaround of the history. So I was not thinking about elections when I was doing them.
Law and Justice believes that it will help them because they are building their campaign on the hate against refugees. And that hate is translated into action. And that hate is the most important part of their propaganda. They are doing the same things which other regimes have done before: stigmatise refugees or people of a different race or nationality as the enemy.
But despite this backlash, the people are going to see the film. People are discussing it, people are crying, expressing very deep emotions. That is what I wanted to do, to touch the hearts and conscience of my co-citizens.
Al Jazeera: You have had to appear publicly with bodyguards. Did you expect this kind of backlash from a drama film?
Holland: I didnât expect that the attacks will be so brutal and shameless. It never happened before in a democratic country. Even if Poland is some kind of the hybrid democracy, that entire government â the party leader, president and everybody â are orchestrating a campaign against one artist, one filmmaker and one movie.
Migration is the most important question in Europe and maybe in the world right now, and which will decide the future of Europe. I believe that we are at a crossroads and where different choices still can be made, and the choice of the violence breaking the law and lies are the most dangerous.
Al Jazeera: Would you say youâre an activist or a filmmaker first?
Holland: They arenât contradictory. When Iâm making a movie, Iâm not doing propaganda. I donât want to agitate people or convince them of one particular ideological agenda. I try to show the complexity of the situation and the complexity of choices, and sometimes the tragic dilemmas that ordinary people are facing. What I try to do in my movies is to give the voice to those who are voiceless and who are forgotten by big history.
My films are historical, but they are facing contemporary issues and challenges. Thatâs why I filmed this in black and white.
At the time I had the idea for this story, which started on my soil, I was shocked by the cynicism of the government. And I was as angry that they are making some kind of the test on the population and isolating the area â forbidding the media and the humanitarian organisations, medical organisations and observers from coming to see whatâs going on.
The explanation was given by (Law and Justice party leader and deputy PM) Mr Kaczynski himself. He said that Americans lost the war in Vietnam because they allowed the media to shoot what was going on there. And somehow itâs true. The images of the suffering of the local people and children moved American public opinion and their acceptance of the war changed. So it was quite cynically saying that we are doing terrible things, but you cannot see it.
Al Jazeera: Law and Justice has made you out to be an enemy of Poland when actually many of your films dealt with the crimes committed against Poles and about Poles rescuing JewsâŠ
Holland: You have two Polands now. You have the Poland of Law and Justice and of hate and exclusion. And you have the Poland of the activists and the people who are helping others, regardless of the colour of their skin and if they are legal or illegal.
And if Iâm promoting any Poland, it is the Poland of those people. And they are Polish as much as the border guards are Polish. Every single person, regardless of the uniform they are wearing or not has a choice to make.
Al Jazeera: How did you prepare for this film? Did you spend time with the activist group portrayed, Grupa Granica, or on the border?
Holland: With my co-writer, I was talking to the locals, to the activists, to the refugees, and also to the border guards in secret. They wanted to tell their story too, because they felt deeply damaged psychologically and morally by the situation. I had the overview from everybody. We had an incredibly wide number of witness statements.
Frankly, I donât remember any time, even when making historical movies, that I did so much extensive research. So everything which is shown in the film, from the thermos flask being broken to the womanâs body being thrown over the fence, was documented by at least two independent sources.
Al Jazeera: Your film ends with quite a hopeful epilogue, showing how Ukrainians have been welcomed by the activists as well as the border guardsâŠ
Holland: Itâs slowly changing. Before the elections, the government suddenly started to attack Ukrainians and say that they will not be helping any more. We see in Europe that populist and right-wing governments and parties are rising, and their main tool is to create fear of refugees and hate of those who can come and take our quiet life away.
Note: This interview was lightly edited for length and clarity.
WARSAW â Polandâs opposition held an enormous rally in Warsaw and other cities on Sunday â claiming more than a million people took part â but the mood two weeks ahead of the election is grim rather than triumphant.
Thatâs because the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has been holding on to a significant lead in the polls. POLITICOâs Poll of Polls has PiS at 38 percent while Civic Coalition, the main opposition grouping, is at 30 percent.
The Million Hearts march called by Donald Tusk, a former prime minister who heads the Civic Coalition, was supposed to lift the spirits of opposition supporters and show them that PiS â in power since 2015 â can be beaten.
âThe impossible has become possible, when I see this sea of hearts, when I see these hundreds of thousands of smiling faces, I feel that this turning point in the history of our homeland is approaching,â Tusk told the crowd in Warsaw.
But the mood among the thousands of people streaming through the heart of the Polish capital â many waving red-and-white Polish or deep-blue EU flags â was more sober.
âIâve had it up to my ears with the government of these awful people who are destroying my country,â said Kalina de Nisau, wearing a wrap made out of knotted EU and Polish flags. âBut Iâm not certain that this march will change the outcome. Itâs very difficult.â
While Tusk and other party leaders were exhorting the huge crowd in Warsaw, PiS leaders were in Polandâs coal mining capital of Katowice to warn darkly of the dangers awaiting Poland if Tusk and his allies win on October 15.
Merkel and migrants
âIf we succeed in beating [Civic Coalition] weâll chase away Tusk. Where? To Berlin,â announced Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, hitting on a popular PiS theme that Tusk is in cahoots with Germany to cripple Poland. He then called Tusk the âpolitical husbandâ of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
He also accused Tusk of trying to organize a wave of illegal migrants into the EU, waving a sheaf of documents he said spelled out the scheme âin black and white.â PiS is trying to deflect the blowback from a growing bribes-for-visas scandal where Polish consulates are accused of issuing work visas for cash, and also of issuing huge numbers of visas to non-EU citizens.
Germany last week brought in heightened border controls on its frontiers with the Czech Republic and Poland to curb an influx of asylum seekers.
PiS also downplayed the scale of the opposition march â which may be the largest in Polish history.
JarosĆaw KaczyĆski, the leader of PiS and Polandâs de facto ruler, denounced âpowerful mediaâ that support Tusk for exaggerating the size of the rally.
âThey are able to say, for example, that there were a million people in Warsaw today, as Tusk said, although both photos and police statements state that there were 60,000,â KaczyĆski said, quoting an unofficial police estimate. During the rally, the route of the march was 4 kilometers long and the eight-lane streets and sidewalks were densely packed with people.
Tusk seized on the size of the crowd to insist it shows a desire to break with PiS, which has seen years of bitter fights with Brussels over accusations it is backsliding on rule of law and democracy thanks to radical changes made to the justice system.
âItâs not about this being the largest political demonstration in European history,â Tusk said. âEurope lives in the hope that Poland will again become a 100 percent European country, democratic and free.â
But a PiS defeat in two weeks is going to need a very rapid change in fortunes for the opposition. Otherwise, PiS is likely to be the largest party, and will then have to hunt for partners to form a coalition that would see it ruling for an unprecedented third four-year term.
âIâm not very optimistic,â said Katarzyna Osuch, walking along with the sea of people in Warsaw. âI think PiS might continue ruling. ⊠Iâm very disappointed.â
The Westâs united front on Ukraine is showing more cracks than ever â and Kyiv has little choice but to grin and bear it.
More than 500 days into Russiaâs full-scale invasion, Republican lawmakers in Washington DC on Saturday derailed an effort to unleash a major tranche of aid for the war-torn country.
Coming just nine days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Washington to plead for continued support, the blockage underscored a hardening of attitudes among congressional Republicans who want to end Washingtonâs assistance for Kyiv.
At the same time as Republicans were voting ânoâ on Capitol Hill, voters in Slovakia elected a pro-Russian prime minister, Robert Fico, who vows not to send a âsingle roundâ of ammunition to Ukraine, and looks set to team up with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor OrbĂ n to oppose further European support for Kyiv. Poland, once the most dependable of Kyivâs allies, made the shock announcement on September 20 that it would no longer send weapons.
These warning signs donât amount to a profound policy shift in Washington or Brussels. U.S. President Joe Biden has vowed to stand by Ukraine despite the budget fiasco. And most European leaders remain staunchly supportive of Ukraine, with some âŹ50 billion in continued support for the country due to be signed off in coming months, according to two EU diplomats who were granted anonymity to talk about the non-public deliberations.
Asked to comment on the fact that the U.S. stopgap bill lacks any funding for Ukraine, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: âThe president has built a coalition of more than 50 countries to provide aid to support Ukraine ⊠There is very strong international coalition behind Ukraine and if Putin thinks he can outlast us, heâs wrong.â
Josep Borrell, the EUâs top diplomat, said he was âsureâ the decision to block funding would be reconsidered. âWeâll continue to be on your side,â he told reporters in Kyiv Monday when asked how the U.S. budget shortfall would affect Ukraine.
Ukrainian politicians â whoâve faced criticism from the United States and United Kingdom for appearing insufficiently âgratefulâ for Western aid â sounded similarly upbeat. âWeâre working with both sides of the Congress to ensure it doesnât repeat again, under any circumstances,â said Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, appearing next to Borrell.
âWords of gratitudeâ
But despite these attempts to put a positive spin on the situation, open criticism of aid among senior Western politicians â coupled with Elon Muskâs online attacks against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy â sends a chilling message to Kyiv.
The message that the U.S. and Europe will stick with Kyiv â no matter what â is starting to ring hollow.
Ukraine remains heavily dependent on Western support not just to fuel its battle against Russia, but also to keep its public administration ticking over. According to its projected budget for 2024, Ukraine expects to receive $42.8 billion from international donors in the coming year, a big chunk of which would come from the United States. In June, Ukraineâs finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, told POLITICO that the U.S. should âstep in and at least provide us mid-term relief.â
At the same time as Republicans were voting ânoâ on Capitol Hill, voters in Slovakia elected a pro-Russian prime minister, Robert Fico, who vows not to send a âsingle roundâ of ammunition to Ukraine | Janos Kummer/Getty Images
Asked whether the holdup on Capitol Hill now leaves Kyiv with a budget shortfall, a spokesperson for Marchenko declined to comment.
Europe is also worried about what to expect from Washington. While most EU countries agree on supporting Ukraine, aid for Kyiv is tied to a broader review of the EUâs long-term budget on which there is no agreement. And since all EU27 countries need to back the deal, it may prove difficult to pass by year-end, which is when the EUâs current support for Ukraine runs out.
âThere is not much political discussion on the financial support for Ukraine. That is not the difficult piece of the puzzle. But the puzzle overall is very hard,  that no one dares to predict anything,â said an EU diplomat who asked not to be named to discuss the confidential budget talks.
Indeed, Hungaryâs OrbĂĄn has already said heâs not prepared to finance Ukraine unless it reviews its treatment of Hungarian minorities living in the country. Although critics describe this stance as a tactical veto meant to unlock funds that Brussels is withholding from Budapest over a separate rule-of-law dispute, OrbĂĄn may use the election of his like-minded Slovakian peer to toughen his negotiating tactics.
âMember states remain broadly supportive of aid for Ukraine,â said a second EU diplomat. âOf course the big elephant in the room is, âWhat if this is the precursor to the U.S. just abandoning Ukraine?â While itâs in the back of everyoneâs minds, I just donât think thatâs going to happen now or anytime soon.â
Amid uncertainty about whether Ukraine will be able to finance its budget and keep its war effort going, Ukrainian officials are trying hard to put on a brave face and appear thankful. Speaking to POLITICO last week, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal insisted on his âgratitudeâ toward Poland, an ally that has been locked in a dispute with Kyiv over grain exports, and has now vowed not to send any more weapons.
âI would like to express the words of gratitude to the Polish nation and all Polish families for the support that they have given and have provided to Ukrainian refugees,â he said.
Gregorio Sorgi and Suzanne Lynch contributed reporting in Brussels and Eun Kim in Washington DC.
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Nicholas Vinocur, Paola Tamma and Veronika Melkozerova
BERLIN â The political maneuver shaking Germanyâs postwar democratic order involves a piece of legislation that is about as mundane as it gets.
Center-right legislators in the eastern German state of Thuringia wanted to cut a local property tax by a small amount â and did so with the support of the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD.
The move broke with years of tradition in which mainstream parties have vowed to maintain a Brandmauer, or firewall, between themselves and the AfD, a party many in a country alert to the legacy of Nazism see as a dire threat to democracy. Even accepting the partyâs support, the thinking goes, would legitimize far-right forces or make them salonfĂ€hig â socially acceptable.
And so, when parliamentarians from the conservative Christian Democratic Union, or CDU, passed the tax reduction on a late afternoon in September with AfD votes, it sent tremors across the countryâs political landscape that still are reverberating.
âFor me, a taboo has been broken,â Katrin Göring-Eckardt, a leader of the Greens who hails from Thuringia, said after the vote. âIt shows me not only that the firewall is gone, but that there is open collaboration.â
For mainstream parties, and the CDU in particular, the question of how to handle the growing presence of far-right radicals in governing bodies from federal and state parliaments to local councils is likely to grow only more vexing.
That especially is the case in the states of the former East Germany, where the AfD now leads in polls at around 28 percent. Next year, the eastern states of Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg will all hold parliamentary elections. Polls show the party leading in all three states.
The AfD is likely to expand its presence in the parliaments of Bavaria and Hesse when those states vote on Sunday. In Hesse, the AfD is coming close to overtaking German Chancellor Olaf Scholzâs center-left Social Democratic Party, according to the latest polls.
The dilemma facing mainstream parties is clear. To work with the AfD means to normalize a party that many believe seeks to subvert the republic from within. But to ostracize the party only alienates its many voters.
The firewall also serves as an unintended political gift, allowing the AfD to depict itself â at a time of high dissatisfaction with mainstream parties â as the clear choice for those who want to send a burn-it-down message to the countryâs political establishment.
At the same time, the controversy over the latest vote in Thuringia seems to have played into the AfDâs hands, allowing the party to depict itself as seeking to uphold rather than undermine democracy.
The ââfirewallâ is history â and Thuringia is just the beginning,â AfD party leader Alice Weidel posted on X, formerly Twitter, after the vote. âItâs time to respond to the democratic will of citizens everywhere in Germany.â
Historic fears
Germanyâs political leaders are all too aware that the Nazi seizure of power began with democratic electoral success. In fact, it was in Thuringia where, in 1930, the Nazi party first took real governing power in coalition with conservative parties.
The ââfirewallâ is history â and Thuringia is just the beginning,â AfD party leader Alice Weidel posted on X, formerly Twitter, after the vote. âItâs time to respond to the democratic will of citizens everywhere in Germanyâ | Christof Stache/AFP via Getty Images
That fact was not lost on the CDUâs opponents.
âGerman conservatism has already been a stirrup holder of fascism,â Janine Wissler, a head of the Left party, told the German Press Agency after the vote. âBack then, too, it started in Thuringia,â she added. âInstead of having learned from that, the CDU is going down a path thatâs as dangerous as fire.â
CDU leaders in Thuringia deny the vote on the tax reduction means the firewall is crumbling. They say there was no cooperation with the AfD ahead of the vote (though AfD members say there were discussions between lawmakers).
âI cannot make good, important decisions for the state that provide relief for families and the economy dependent on the fact that the wrong people might agree,â Mario Voigt, the head of the CDU in Thuringia said after the vote.
Friedrich Merz, the national leader of the CDU, has sent mixed signals on the firewall â or at least on what exactly the firewall means. Merz says the CDU will not form coalitions with the AfD but heâs been less clear on whether the CDU will work with the party in other ways.
In a television interview over the summer, he seemed to suggest working with the AfD on the local level was all but inevitable.
Friedrich Merz, the national leader of the CDU, has sent mixed signals on the firewall | Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images
âWe are of course obliged to accept democratic elections,â he said. âAnd if a district administrator, a mayor is elected there who belongs to the AfD, itâs natural that you look for ways to then continue to work in this city.â
After an uproar ensued, Merz walked back the comment. âThere will be no cooperation between the CDU and the AfD at the municipal level either,â he posted on X, formerly Twitter.
After the vote in Thuringia, Merz stood by the CDU leadership of the state. âWe donât go by who agrees, we go by what we think is right in the matter,â he said on German television.
Even some within his own party do not see things that way. Daniel GĂŒnther, the CDU premier of the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, sharply criticized his party colleagues in Thuringia. âAs a conservative, I must be able to say plainly and simply the sentence, âI do not form majorities with extremists,ââ GĂŒnther said.
âCordon sanitaireâ
Itâs not the first time Thuringia has been at the center of a controversy over the firewall. In 2020, a little-known politician in the pro-business Free Democratic Party, Thomas Kemmerich, was elected state premier with the support of the CDU and AfD. Then-Chancellor Angela Merkel weighed in to call the vote âunforgivable.â
In the furor that followed, Kemmerich resigned as did the then-head of the CDU faction in the state. But given the AfDâs large presence in the local parliament, the issue was bound to resurface.
Itâs not the first time Thuringia has been at the center of a controversy over the firewall | Christof Stache/AFP via Getty Images
The problem is far from Germanyâs alone. Mainstream parties are under growing pressure due to the rise of the radical right across Europe.
In France, parties from across the political spectrum have formed a cordon sanitaire, or sanitary cordon, to keep Marine Le Pen, a leader of the far-right National Rally, out of the presidency. But with Le Penâs party now the biggest opposition group in the National Assembly, the cordon is getting harder to maintain.
In the European Parliament, where a similar cordon has been erected, the center-right European Peopleâs Party has been openly courting the European Conservatives and Reformists, home to Polandâs nationalist Law and Justice party and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloniâs far-right Brothers of Italy party.
In Thuringia, the stakes are even higher as the local branch of the AfD contains some of the partyâs most extreme members. State-level intelligence authorities tasked with surveilling anti-constitutional groups have characterized the partyâs local branch as extremist.
The leader of the AfD in Thuringia is Björn Höcke, who is set to face trial for using banned Nazi rhetoric. (In 2021, he closed a speech with the phrase âAlles fĂŒr Deutschland!â or âEverything for Germany!â â a slogan used by Nazi stormtroopers.)
Höcke railed against Holocaust remembrance in Germany and warned of âVolkstod,â the death of the Volk, through âpopulation replacement.â For such views, German courts have ruled that Höcke could justifiably be referred to as a fascist or Nazi.
GERMANY NATIONAL PARLIAMENT ELECTION POLL OF POLLS
WARSAW â The campaign language ahead of this yearâs Polish general election is apocalyptic â painting it as an existential battle for the soul of the EUâs fifth most populous country â but the likeliest outcome is a chaotic stalemate.
If the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) hangs on to power for a third term there isnât much more it can do to wreck Poland without quitting the EU â and thereâs little prospect of that. If the opposition pulls off a stunner and wins it will be so hemmed in by PiS-controlled courts and institutions and by a hostile president that it wonât be able to do much more than tweak the optics rather than surgically remove the growths added by Law and Justice.
Internationally, Poland is too important to be kept in the deep freeze forever; with a fast-growing economy, a big military and a key role in supplying Ukraine, it is no Slovakia. A PiS win will mean greater efforts to find some accommodation with Warsaw; an opposition victory will dramatically improve the atmosphere, but there are limits to even an opposition-ruled Polandâs coziness on many issues that are key to the EU.
An opposition victory could weaken PiSâs institutional advantages that itâs been using to skew the playing field in its favor â potentially leading to a longer-term shift away from the right-wing party thatâs dominated Polish politics for the past eight years. But itâs no quick fix.
According to PiS, opposition leader Donald Tusk is a disloyal Pole who is working on behalf of both Germany and Russia to turn the country into a puppet state by letting in hundreds of thousands of migrants.
Oh, and he also wants to raise the retirement age.
JarosĆaw KaczyĆski, the PiS chief and Polandâs real ruler, thundered to his supporters on Sunday: âDonald Tusk had to agree to make Poland subservient to Germany and therefore to Russia.â
âStop Tusk. Only PiS can ensure Polandâs security,â trumpets an election ad.
For the opposition, led by Tuskâs Civic Coalition, another four-year term with Law and Justice at the helm means real danger for the future of Poland as a democratic country, as well as undermining the rights of women thanks to a draconian abortion law and an LGBTQ+ minority subjected to attacks by ruling party officials.
âLaw and Justice is poison,â Tusk said at a campaign rally this summer. âEvery day, every month they are in power is a growing threat to our security.â
Those fighting words are designed to budge the electorate; POLITICOâs Poll of Polls shows PiS at 37 percent while Civic Coalition is at 30 percent â meaning any new government is going to require cobbling together a coalition with smaller parties.
Polish Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Law and Justice (PiS) ruling party JarosĆaw KaczyĆski has promised that if his party wins, heâll continue the judicial system changes that have so distressed the EU | Marian Zubrzycki/EPA-EFE
Itâs not all rhetorical spin.
âThere is always a tendency to say this is the most important election since 1989 [the election that ended communist rule], but this time there is a somewhat stronger case for making that argument. The level of polarization is evidence for that,â said Aleks Szczerbiak, a professor of politics at the University of Sussex in the U.K.
High stakes
The outcome is going to be watched very closely, from Brussels to Kyiv.
For the European Union, the hope is that if PiS is ousted Poland will return to the ways of Tusk, who served as Polish prime minister during a remarkable era of comity with the EU and with Germany before going on to become president of the European Council. As an added sweetener, Brussels will likely quickly move to release âŹ36 billion in loans and grants from the blocâs pandemic recovery fund held up over worries that PiSâs court system reforms undermine judicial independence.
The EU court cases, parliamentary resolutions, infringement procedures and Article 7 effort to strip Poland of its voting rights would also likely be shelved.
The German government would also sigh with relief at seeing the back of a government that has fiercely needled Berlin at every occasion and also called for up to $1.3 trillion in compensation for the destruction caused by the Nazi occupation; although the opposition hasnât cut itself off from that demand.Â
Poland has been one of Ukraineâs fiercest advocates during the war â sending tanks and jet fighters ahead of most other countries, offering diplomatic support, receiving millions of refugees who fled the early days of the war, and serving as the main transshipment point for weapons and other aid heading east.
But the election campaign has soured that relationship.
Warsaw led the charge in blocking Ukrainian grain exports, worried it would undercut Polish prices and harm farmers â a key voting bloc. When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dared to criticize Poland at the U.N., a furious President Andrzej Duda compared Ukraine to a drowning man who poses a danger to his rescuers.
âWe say to the Ukrainian authorities â do not do what goes against the interests of Polish farmers,â lectured Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who said last month that Poland would stop sending weapons to Ukraine while it rebuilt its own stocks.
Polandâs Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau skipped this weekâs summit in Kyiv. Getting relations back on an even keel will take âa titanic effort,â he said.
Tusk promised a reset: âWe cannot allow good Polish-Ukrainian relations to depend on the negligence and chaos created by the Polish government.â
Polish opposition leader and former premier, Donald Tusk addresses participants of a rally in Warsaw on October 1, 2023 | Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images
A PiS victory will send shock waves across Europe.
Hungarian PM Viktor OrbĂĄn, KaczyĆskiâs closest ally, has been building his illiberal democracy for over a decade. With Rome governed by right-winger Giorgia Meloni, Slovakian populist Robert Fico scoring a victory in last weekâs election, and the far-right Alternative for Germany party rising fast in the polls, the signal is that the right is gaining strength across the Continent.
Thatâs likely to further erode the tenuous hold on power of centrist parties in the European Parliament in next yearâs election.
It will also block any chance of agreeing on a migration pact to tackle the thousands of people crossing EU borders and kill any effort to reform EU institutions ahead of an expansion to Balkan countries and Ukraine.
âA PiS government will block reforms on issues like taxation and foreign policy that threaten the national veto right. There is also a different approach to migration,â warned a senior Polish government official who spoke on condition of being granted anonymity. âWe have another model of the European Union.â
Reality bites
However, despite the rhetoric, the reality is that the election is unlikely to mean a radical worsening of relations between Warsaw and Brussels.
KaczyĆski has promised that if his party wins heâll continue the judicial system changes that have so distressed the EU, after admitting that the reforms made so far havenât worked. He vowed: âThis time it will succeed.â
But his party has already sent out peace feelers to Brussels, trying and so far failing to backtrack on some changes to top courts to get the Commission to release the blocked funds.
If Law and Justice wins a third term, EU institutions will have to decide whether they want to continue the confrontation, or else make peace with a Poland that has firmly chosen a populist course.
âIt takes two to tango. Maybe there will be a will to compromise on both sides,â said the Polish government official.
Permanent ostracism is also untenable, as Hungary showed this week by playing a skillful game of getting the EU to release blocked funds to avoid OrbĂĄn vetoing aid for Ukraine.
Despite opposition charges that PiS wants to pull Poland out of the EU in a Polexit â a cry from parts of the far right â Law and Justice says it has no intention of following the U.K. out of the bloc.
The results of the Polish general election could influence the upcoming European Parliament election and Polandâs presidential election in 2025 | Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images
âPiSâs direction has always been toward the EU,â said PiS MP RadosĆaw Fogiel.
And an opposition-led Poland would also be no easy partner for Brussels. After the initial flush of warmth, perennial problems will return like Polandâs continued addiction to coal-fired power, its reluctance to join the euro, and a suspicion of large flows of migrants â also voiced by Tusk during the campaign.
âEven if there is a change of government, there will still be very strong public opposition to a change in migration policy,â said Jacek Czaputowicz, a former foreign minister under the PiS government, speaking at the Warsaw Security Forum.
Polandâs large and powerful farming sector will be a huge issue for Ukrainian grain exports and for future efforts to recalibrate the EU to accommodate new and poorer members.
Ukrainian politicians hope that the war of words with Warsaw will die down after the election.
âWar is exhausting for Ukraine and for Poland too, so emotions are felt on both sides, in addition, the election campaign in Poland, that tends to politicize everything, even economic issues,â said Andriy Deshchytsia, former Ukrainian ambassador to Poland, adding: âHowever, the Russian threat is still here, just like a year ago ⊠so we donât have any other choice but to sit and search for a compromise.â
As bad as it gets
At home, the election is also unlikely to have the earth-shattering impact thatâs being voiced during the campaign.
PiS has done a lot of damage over the last eight years, and itâs difficult to see how much more it can do while still remaining a member of the EU. The state media is a Euro-lite version of North Korea, state-controlled corporations are stuffed with party hacks, the highest courts are firmly under political control, much of the Roman Catholic Church functions as a PiS acolyte, the police donât mind clubbing the occasional opposition protester, the prosecutorâs office has become a political plaything â dropping investigations of the well-connected while fiercely pursuing the regimeâs opponents.
But expanding that control will be difficult in an economy that has a large and vibrant private sector, a strong civil society and hefty private media.
Non-government media operators are owned by foreign companies that have shown no sign of backing out of the Polish market; an earlier effort to tangle with American-owned TVN, the countryâs largest private television network, was quickly slapped down by Washington.
The EU is also working on a rulebook that aims to secure media independence against political pressure and foster pluralism;Â Commission Vice President VÄra JourovĂĄ warned it âwill be a major warning signal for member states.â
An opposition win would dramatically change the optics with Brussels, and a new government would scrap further legal changes to courts. But any effort to roll back those reforms, and any other PiS legislation, will run into a significant hurdle: President Duda.
There is a chance that Polandâs President Andrzej Duda will cooperate, as Tusk has threatened to prosecute him for violating the constitution | Leon Neal/Getty Images
There is no poll predicting an opposition win so gigantic that it would gain a two-thirds majority of MPs needed to overturn presidential vetoes. The countryâs top courts are filled with judges appointed by the current government, meaning legislation will also be caught up in endless litigation.
âEven if they win an outright majority, which doesnât look likely at the moment, this is an internally divided opposition and they face a president who will be able to veto their legislation,â said Szczerbiak.
However, there is a chance that Duda will cooperate, as Tusk has threatened to prosecute him for violating the constitution.
âDuda is a dealmaker,â said Wawrzyniec SmoczyĆski, a political analyst and president of the New Community Foundation. âTusk is a big risk for him and the way to lessen that is to strike a deal.â
If Duda doesnât play ball, a non-PiS government could be limited to purging state companies, the government and the media of PiS loyalists.
âOvernight you will get the public media back. Everyone will be booted out of there,â Tusk pledged.
Those small steps are unlikely to satisfy opposition backers yearning for revenge against Law and Justice and a clean break with the last eight years.
âFor Poland, itâs all fucked up,â said PaweĆ Piechowiak, taking part in last weekâs massive opposition march in Warsaw while waving huge Polish and EU flags, his cheeks painted in rainbow colors. âYou canât wreck this country any more than it is.â
But those personnel changes may have longer term consequences by switching public media away from backing PiS, which could undercut that partyâs base of support in rural and small-town Poland.
That could change the political dynamic, especially if the next government is short-lived and there is an early election; it could also influence the upcoming European Parliament election and Polandâs presidential election in 2025.
âThe parliamentary election could be viewed as the first round of a longer campaign,â said Szczerbiak.
Veronika Melkozerova contributed reporting from Kyiv.
Polandâs Education Minister PrzemysĆaw Czarnek said Tuesday he has âtaken stepsâ toward extraditing Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian Nazi veteran who was honored by Canadian parliamentarians last week.
During Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyyâs visit to Canada last Friday, House Speaker Anthony Rota introduced Hunka as a Canadian-Ukrainian war hero, prompting a standing ovation from parliamentarians.
But the tribute triggered a wave of criticism from Jewish organizations, advocacy groups and leaders across the world, because Hunka fought with the First Ukrainian Division â also known as the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division, which served under command of the Nazis in Adolf Hitlerâs World War II fight against Russiaâs Red Army.
âIn view of the scandalous events in the Canadian Parliament, which involved honoring, in the presence of President Zelenskyy, a member of the criminal Nazi SS Galizien formation, I have taken steps towards the possible extradition of this man to Poland,â Czarnek said on X, formerly Twitter.
In a letter to Polandâs Institute of National Remembrance, a body that researches and investigates past crimes against the Polish nation, Czarnek asked it to âurgently examineâ whether Hunka is wanted for crimes against Polish people of Jewish origin, adding that âsigns of such crimes are grounds to apply to Canada for his extradition.â
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told media the situation was âextremely upsettingâ and âdeeply embarrassingâ for Canada. Rota has since apologized and said he took âfull responsibilityâ for the incident, but has so far refused to step down from his role.
Canadaâs Attorney General Arif Virani said he has not been contacted by the Polish government over the extradition request yet and that âcommenting on early stages of an extradition process is not appropriate.â
âWhat I would say to you is that an extradition process is a sensitive matter that ultimately comes across my desk for a final decision,â Virani added. âApropos of that, I canât be commenting on an extradition matter until it actually appears in front of my desk because that would jeopardize the investigation.â
Polandâs prime minister has told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to never âinsultâ Poles again, returning to harsh rhetoric towards Kyiv after the Polish president had sought to defuse a simmering dispute between the two countries over the issue of Ukrainian grain imports.
Zelenskyy angered his neighbours in Warsaw â a key military ally against Russia â when he told the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week that Kyiv was working to preserve land routes for its grain exports amid a Russian blockade of the Black Sea, but that âpolitical theatreâ around grain imports was helping Moscowâs cause.
âI ⊠want to tell President Zelenskyy never to insult Poles again, as he did recently during his speech at the UN,â Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told an election rally on Friday, according to the State-run news agency PAP.
Earlier on Friday, Polandâs President Andrzej Duda said the dispute between Poland and Ukraine over grain imports would not significantly affect good bilateral relations, in an apparent move to ease tensions.
âI have no doubt that the dispute over the supply of grain from Ukraine to the Polish market is an absolute fragment of the entire Polish-Ukrainian relations,â Duda told a business conference. âI donât believe that it can have a significant impact on them, so we need to solve this matter between us.â
Dudaâs comment followed after Prime Minister Morawiecki was reported as saying that Poland would no longer send weapons to Ukraine amid the grain dispute.
âWe are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons,â Morawiecki said on Wednesday, according to a local media report.
Poland is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections on October 15, and Morawieckiâs ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party has come in for criticism from the far right for what it says is the governmentâs subservient attitude to Kyiv.
Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said in an article by Politico that Poland wanted to see âa strong Ukrainian state emerge from this war with a vibrant economyâ, and that Warsaw âwill continue to back Ukraineâs efforts to join NATO and the EUâ.
However, speaking to reporters in New York, Rau said that while Poland had not changed its policy towards Ukraine, there had been a âradical change in Polish public opinionâs perceptionâ of the countriesâ relationship.
Asked by the PAP news agency what it would take to improve this perception, Rau said repairing the atmosphere would require a âtitanicâ diplomatic effort.
Slovakia, Poland and Hungary imposed national restrictions on Ukrainian grain imports after the EU executive decided not to extend its ban on imports into those countries as well as fellow EU members Bulgaria and Romania.
The countries have argued that cheap Ukrainian agricultural goods â meant mainly to transit further west and to ports â get sold locally, harming their own farmers.
Speaking in Canada on Friday, Zelenskyy did not mention the tension with Poland but said that when Ukraine lacked support, Russia was strengthened.
âYou help either Ukraine or Russia. There will be no mediators in this war. By weakening assistance to Ukraine, you will strengthen Russia,â Zelenskyy told reporters after a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
âAnd a powerful Russia and what to expect from it⊠I think history in books and witnesses has long since answered this question. If someone wants to take a risk, fine, weaken assistance to Ukrainians,â he said, according to a statement posted on the Ukrainian presidentâs website.
âTo be frank and honest, freedom, democracy and human rights must be fought for,â he added.
The Kremlin said on Friday that it was watching the situation between Kyiv and Warsaw closely, adding that tensions would inevitably grow between Kyiv and its European allies as the dispute over grain escalates.
âWe predict that these frictions between Warsaw and Kyiv will increase. Friction between Kyiv and other European capitals will also grow over time. This is inevitable,â Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
âWe are, of course, watching this closely,â Peskov said, calling Kyiv and Warsaw âthe mainâ centres of Russophobia.
WARSAW â Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party is in the fight of its political life ahead of next month’s general election â and in its scramble for votes it’s taking aim at the country’s alliance with Ukraine.
The latest blow came from Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who on Wednesday said that Poland has halted shipments of its own armaments to Ukraine.
âWe are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine, because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons,â Morawiecki told Poland’s Polsat television.
It’s true that Poland has sent most of its Soviet-era tanks, fighters and other weapons to Ukraine and doesn’t have much left in its stocks. Warsaw will also continue allowing arms shipments from other allies to pass through its territory.
“Poland still functions as a hub for international aid,” said government spokesperson Piotr MĂŒller, adding that the country is fulfilling its existing military supply contracts with Ukraine.
But Morawiecki’s comments come at a time when relations between Warsaw and Kyiv are the frostiest since Russia’s invasion a year and a half ago, and add to the impression that the nationalist party is undermining its alliance with Ukraine for electoral gain.
“Morawiecki wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t obvious … but to say such a thing at such a time escalates the conflict,” said Marcin Zaborowski, a director with the Globsec think tank.
The catalyst is grain.
Poland, Hungary and Slovakia have closed their markets to Ukrainian grain imports, in violation of the rules of the European Union’s single market, arguing they need to protect their farmers from price drops.
Ukraine has retaliated by filing a lawsuit against them at the World Trade Organization. It has also threatened to block some Polish agricultural exports to Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took a swipe at those countries at the United Nations this week, saying: “Alarmingly, some in Europe play out solidarity in a political theater â turning grain into a thriller … theyâre helping set the stage for a Moscow actor.â
Polish President Andrzej Duda scrapped a meeting with Zelenskyy in New York due to a scheduling conflict, and the Ukrainian ambassador to Warsaw was summoned to the foreign ministry to explain. Morawiecki characterized relations with Kyiv as “difficult.”
Political calculation
In Poland, the core reason for the move is PiS’s need to shore up its support among rural voters and also to peel away supporters from the far-right Confederation party, many of whose backers are skeptical about helping Ukraine.
The Polish government sent tanks and jet fighters to Ukraine at a time when many other countries were balking at sending such equipment to Kyiv | Omar Marques/Getty Images
“Ukrainians ruthlessly took advantage of the Polish government being a sucker, emphasized their sympathy, which of course was not there, took the cash, and now they will declare a trade war on us,” Confederation leader SĆawomir Mentzen told the Polish press.
Jacek Kucharczyk, head of the Institute for Public Affairs, a Warsaw-based think tank, characterized the shift in tone by the ruling party as “a desperate electoral ploy.”
In POLITICO’s poll of polls, PiS has the support of 38 percent of voters while Civic Coalition, the leading opposition party, is at 29 percent. If that holds, Law and Justice won’t have enough seats in parliament to rule on its own and so will have to try to form a coalition; Confederation is the likeliest target, although the party says it won’t join forces with PiS.
But the trends look worrying for PiS.
The government has been hit with a growing visas-for-bribes scandal that now has the European Commission asking for explanations. A new poll by United Surveys shows that if the main opposition parties join together, they would be able to cobble together a majority government after the October 15 election.
Shifting narrative
The U-turn on Ukraine may help shore up some of PiS’s electoral base. But it could cause other problems.
It undermines the government’s main foreign policy win. After years of bitter conflicts with the European Union and other key allies over rule of law, media freedom and backsliding on democratic standards, Poland’s strong support for Ukraine changed the narrative in Brussels and in Washington.
Millions of ordinary Poles helped Ukrainian refugees fleeing across the border in the immediate aftermath of the Russian attack. The Polish government sent tanks and jet fighters to Ukraine at a time when many other countries were balking at sending such equipment to Kyiv, fearing Russian retaliation. Warsaw also took delight in pointing out the shortcomings of European countries like Germany and France.
Zelenskyy even called Poland a “sister.”
In an address to the Polish nation made last year in Polish, he said: “I will remember how you welcomed us, how you help us. Poles are our allies, your country is our sister. Your friendship forever. Our friendship forever. Our love forever. Together we will be victors.”
Opinion polls show there is still strong support for helping Ukraine, with about three-quarters of Poles wanting to accept refugees.
Millions of ordinary Poles helped Ukrainian refugees fleeing across the border in the immediate aftermath of the Russian attack | Omar Marques/Getty Images
“The risk is that PiS voters broadly support the pro-Ukraine policy, and such a rapid policy change could be difficult to explain,” said Kucharczyk.
PiS has toyed with skepticism about Ukraine in the past â raising the issue of wartime massacres of Poles by Ukrainian nationalist guerrillas â but the overarching message was that Poland is Ukraine’s firmest friend.
The narrative shift is being welcomed in Moscow.
In New York, Duda compared Ukraine to a desperate, drowning person.
“A drowning person is extremely dangerous, he can pull you down to the depths … simply drown the rescuer,” Duda said.
That got a thumbs-up from the Kremlin.
“Never before did I agree with Duda as strongly as I did after this statement. Everything he said is correct,” said Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.
The Polish opposition is also going on the attack.
RadosĆaw Sikorski, a former Polish foreign minister and now a member of the European Parliament for the Civic Coalition, called Morawiecki’s comments “criminally stupid.”
“Even if we don’t have much more to give then why is he saying this in public! Does he really want [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to calculate that one or two more pushes and Ukraine will fall?” he tweeted.
Kyiv is now trying to downplay any rift with Warsaw.
Oleksandr Merezhko, head of Ukraine’s parliament committee on foreign relations, said he felt Morawiecki’s weapons comments weren’t linked to the growing trade fight.
“Like every politician, I know that during an election campaign, rhetoric can be quite emotional,” he said.
Bartosz BrzeziĆski and Veronika Melkozerova contributed reporting.
Warsaw has stopped supplying weapons to Kyiv and is focusing on arming itself instead, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Wednesday, amid a dispute over Ukraine’s agricultural exports.
âWe are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine, because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons,â Morawiecki said in an appearance on Polish television channel Polsat, according to European Pravda. “If you don’t want to be on the defensive, you have to have something to defend yourself with,” he added, insisting, though, that the move wouldn’t endanger Ukraine’s security.
Morawiecki’s terse comments came as tensions escalated between Kyiv and the EU over the past week, after the European Commission moved to allow Ukrainian grain sales across the bloc, ending restrictions on grain imports which five eastern EU countries originally sought to protect their farmers from competition.
Poland, Hungary and Slovakia responded to the Commission’s move by imposing unilateral bans on Ukrainian grain imports, in apparent violation of the EUâs internal market rules. Kyiv struck back by filing lawsuits against the three countries at the World Trade Organization.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday took a thinly veiled swipe at those imposing grain bans, telling the U.N. General Assembly: “It is alarming to see how some in Europe, some of our friends in Europe, play out solidarity in a political theater â making a thriller from the grain. They may seem to play their own role but in fact they are helping set the stage to a Moscow actor.”
While Zelenskyy didn’t specifically name-check Poland, Warsaw summoned Kyiv’s ambassador to the foreign ministry in response.
Morawiecki also delivered a “warning” to “Ukraine’s authorities,” earlier telling Polsat, “if they are to escalate the conflict like that, we will add additional products to the ban on imports into Poland. Ukrainian authorities do not understand the degree to which Polandâs farming industry has been destabilized.”
Poland is in the midst of a high-stakes campaign ahead of an election next month, with the right-wing Law and Justice government battling for reelection. While Warsaw initially threw its weight behind the campaign to help Kyiv fend off Russia’s attempted invasion, that full-throated support has waned as the consequences of supporting Ukraine for its own farmers have become more evident.
