By Aleks Szczerbiak

The parliamentary survival of Poland’s agrarian party is on a knife edge as it has lost much of its core rural-agricultural electorate and its distinctive identity is overshadowed in the governing coalition. The party’s ability to clear the electoral representation threshold could determine whether pro-government groupings secure a majority at the next election.

A class-based rural-agricultural party

In December 2023, a coalition headed up by liberal-centrist Civic Coalition (KO, until last autumn Civic Platform: PO) leader Donald Tusk took office following eight years’ rule by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, currently the main opposition grouping.

The ruling coalition also includes: the agrarian Polish People’s Party (PSL), liberal-centrist Poland 2050 (Polska 2050) party and breakaway Centre (Centrum) caucus, and the New Left (Nowa Lewica).

PSL was formed in 1990 as the organisational successor to the former communist satellite United Peasant Party (ZSL), although it attempted to legitimate itself by claiming to have roots in the pre-communist agrarian movement which dates back to the 19th century.

Peasant parties were prominent in inter-war Polish politics, and the movement provided the main political opposition to the communist takeover in the late 1940s.

In the 1990s, it was estimated that 25% of Poles were employed in the farming sector, mostly in peasant smallholdings that survived as an independent economic sphere throughout the communist period. This provided PSL with a substantial segment of the electorate that it could appeal to on the basis of a clear socioeconomic interest and collective identity.

Consequently, it was a junior coalition partner in the governments led by the communist successor Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) between 1993 and 1997 (with its leader Waldemar Pawlak prime minister from 1993 to 1995) and 2001 to 2003.

A near-death experience

The party returned to office in 2007, when it became PO’s junior governing partner, a coalition that lasted two terms until 2015, when it was ousted by PiS.

Over the years, PiS severely eroded PSL’s core rural-agricultural electoral base, and the agrarians had a near-death experience in the 2015 parliamentary election, when they only just crossed the 5% representation threshold for individual parties.

PSL leaders have often talked about rebranding the grouping as a broader centrist formation in the way that some west European agrarian parties evolved from class-based organisations into more “catch-all” groupings.

In the 2019 election, for example, it headed up a broader centre-right “Polish Coalition” (KP) bloc including right-wing anti-establishment rock star Paweł Kukiz (although the bloc’s candidates actually ran on the party’s electoral lists to avoid the higher 8% threshold for formal electoral coalitions). In the event, KP secured a solid 8.6% of the votes.

Crucial to the Tusk government’s majority

PSL contested the most recent autumn 2023 parliamentary election as part of the Third Way (Trzecia Droga), an eclectic electoral coalition with Poland 2050, a party founded by former TV personality-turned-politician Szymon Hołownia to capitalise on his strong third-placed showing in the 2020 presidential election.

In the event, Third Way effectively recaptured Hołownia’s claim to represent a fresh, untainted alternative to the dominant KO-PiS duopoly and finished third with a larger-than-expected 14.4% share of the votes.

PSL, and Third Way more broadly, were thus crucial elements of the current governing parties’ election-winning coalition, acting as an effective channel or “gateway” for picking up uncertain voters who were disillusioned with PiS but reluctant to back KO directly and return Tusk to office.

The Third Way project stayed together for the spring 2024 local elections, when its support held steady (14% in the regional assembly polls), and summer European Parliament (EP) election, when it slumped to only 7%.

But, following Hołownia’s unsuccessful 2025 presential bid – he finished fifth with just under 5% of the votes – PSL decided to end the alliance and contest future elections under its own banner.

But on a knife edge

However, since then the party’s opinion poll ratings have been consistently below the 5% threshold in the low-to-mid single digits. One of the key reasons why PSL, and the Third Way project more generally, lost support after its strong 2023 performance was that, by aligning so closely with a KO-dominated government, it came to be seen as a loyal, uncritical appendage of the main governing party.

It thereby failed to carve out a distinctive identity as a genuine alternative to the dominant KO-PiS duopoly.

All of this really matters for the governing coalition because, although KO is currently well ahead in the opinion polls as the most competitive individual grouping, if an election were held today the current ruling parties would likely fall short of an overall parliamentary majority.

This is because overall the right-wing opposition has greater combined strength and, crucially, some of KO’s smaller coalition partners that it needs to deliver the extra parliamentary seats required for a majority cannot be sure of crossing the 5% threshold.

And PSL’s situation is the most knife-edge, but crucial as to whether the coalition can boost its seat total and prevent the “wasted” votes that would otherwise help the right-wing opposition erase its parliamentary majority.

A single pro-government mega-list?

Since Third Way’s dissolution, there has been constant speculation about how PSL will attempt to cross the threshold next time. At this stage, in spite of poor opinion poll ratings, party leaders claim that the matter is settled and appear determined to contest the next election independently.

However, notwithstanding the party’s rural visibility and highly developed local networks in the countryside, a solo run appears extremely risky and there is a good chance that it will be forced to at least consider some alternative strategic and tactical solutions.

Thirty-day polling averages for Poland’s main political groups (source: eWybory.eu)

At first glance, an obvious one would be leveraging KO’s strength and running as part of a single, joint mega-list comprising all the parties affiliated with the Tusk government.

However, for the moment at least, PSL leaders have rejected such a formula, arguing this could risk alienating a large segment of its core, more socially conservative, rural and small-town electoral base, who would find it difficult to vote for an electoral list that included politicians advocating left-liberal policies on moral-cultural issues such as abortion.

Opponents of the single joint list idea often point to the experience of the “European Coalition” (Koalicja Europejska), when virtually all of the opposition to the then-PiS government came together to form a broad alliance dominated by socially liberal and culturally left-wing parties specifically to contest the May 2019 EP elections.

In the event, PiS secured 45%, its highest-ever vote share in a national election, ahead of the Coalition with only 38%, which was less than the combined support of the parties comprising the bloc when it was formed.

At the same time, the New Left is also more inclined to run an independent party list given that polls suggest that it is likely to cross the 5% threshold. Indeed, some analysts who previously supported the idea of a joint list are now significantly more sceptical, citing the fall in left-wing voter enthusiasm for such a project.

Loyalty versus distinctiveness

PSL may be more open to a potential coalition with just KO, as this could allow them to present themselves as the moderate conservative wing of a so-called “democratic coalition”.

In fact, polls and past experience suggest that, even with such a limited electoral coalition, PSL’s distinct profile as a moderate socially conservative grouping with deep roots in the countryside and focused on agriculture, rural development and traditional values would risk being subsumed by KO’s more dominant urban liberal branding.

As well as risking a loss of identity, there are also concerns that Tusk’s much larger party would dominate the merged electoral list with fewer PSL candidates securing winnable positions.

Indeed, even KO leaders argue that it is too early to discuss the idea of a joint list, as this could reinforce the perception that the governing parties are on the defensive.

The government’s immediate priority, they argue, should be implementing its programme so that its constituent elements can contest the election with a more solid record of policy achievements.

As part of this, PSL’s strategy has been to leverage its ministerial posts to position itself as a centre-right grouping that can build consensus and lower the temperature of political debate, thus representing moderate voters who care about the responsible governance of the state.

One of the party’s strongest assets here is its emollient leader: deputy prime minister and defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz. Some also have high hopes for PSL-linked rising star Magdalena Sobkowiak-Czarnecka, who has enjoyed a very high media profile as the public face of Poland’s €44 billion share of the EU’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) defence loan programme.

However, there is an obvious tension here between remaining loyal to the government and seeking enough autonomy for a credible electoral pitch that is distinctive enough to differentiate PSL from the main ruling grouping.

Arguably, up until now the agrarians have attached too much weight to the former. Sobkowiak-Czarnecka’s public profile is, for example, very detached from any party affiliation.

A looser centrist alliance?

Another option is for PSL to find partners to run as part of a looser centrist alliance, as it did with the Polish Coalition bloc in 2019. One possibility that sparked a flurry of speculation earlier this year was the idea of a link-up with former PiS prime minister, and head of the party’s more centrist modernising-technocratic wing, Mateusz Morawiecki.

Morawiecki is clearly trying to find a place for himself at the centre of the political scene, and is at odds with Law and Justice’s traditionalist-conservative faction that appears to have gained the upper hand within the party.

However, having strengthened his position in recent weeks, the chances of Morawiecki leaving the party have been reduced. At the same time, PSL leaders would find it difficult to justify forming an alliance with, and thereby legitimating, someone whom the Tusk government has accused of being heavily implicated in scandals linked to the previous PiS administration.

Indeed, PSL has plenty of other potential strategic partners, including those rooted more in civil society than political circles.

For example, there have been media reports that the high-profile chief executive of the InPost parcel delivery company, Rafał Brzoska, is planning to create a new pro-business centrist political force open to cooperation with the party.

PSL has been courting entrepreneurs, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, for some time now, albeit with limited success.

What is the party’s long-term strategy?

Beyond the specific challenge that the party faces from PiS for its traditional electoral base, longer-term demographic trends show that Poles are moving away from rural areas and the proportion working in agriculture is declining steadily as modern farms operate increasingly as agrobusinesses rather than traditional peasant smallholdings.

Nonetheless, in spite of its changing electorate and apparently more open political style, plans to modernise PSL have not progressed much beyond rather vague aspirations.

Critics argue that it remains in essence a deeply pragmatic, office-seeking, interest-based rural-agricultural “class” grouping strongly rooted in powerful local patronage networks and provincial transactional politics.

So while the party is well-placed to engage in short-term electoral strategic partnerships and tactical alliances, it still needs to answer the more fundamental, long-term question of: what kind of strategy or vision does a modern-day peasant, or “people’s”, party need in an era when its rural-agricultural roots are no longer sufficient to generate a solid and reliable core electorate?

Aleks Szczerbiak is Professor of Politics at the University of Sussex. The original version of this article appeared here.

Polish, Ukrainian and English-language media outlets have widely reported this week that Poland’s deputy prime minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, said in an interview on Monday that: “With Bandera, Ukraine will not enter the EU.”

The alleged quote refers to Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera, who is revered by some in Ukraine as a symbol of the struggle for independence but whose followers were also responsible for massacres of Poles, Jews and others during World War Two.

However, Kosiniak-Kamysz did not actually say the words attributed to him. They were spoken by the person interviewing him. Below, we explain what was actually said during the interview and how it has come to be misinterpreted.

First, the context. Poland and Ukraine have been embroiled in a dispute since late May, when President Volodymyr Zelensky named a military unit after the “heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

In Ukraine, the UPA is remembered primarily for its role in fighting for Ukrainian independence from Moscow-imposed Soviet rule. In Poland, however, it is associated with the Volhynia massacres, in which the UPA led the slaughter of around 100,000 ethnic Polish civilians, mostly women and children.

In response to Zelensky’s decision to rename the unit, Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped him of Poland’s highest honour, the Order of the White Eagle. That led Zelensky to cancel a planned trip to Poland to attend the Ukraine Recovery Conference that was held in the city of Gdańsk last week.

Then, last Sunday, the situation escalated further when Zelensky announced plans to create a new Ukrainian National Pantheon that would include great historical figures. “No one will dictate which heroes we should honour,” he declared. 

Zelensky’s actions in recent weeks have prompted many Polish politicians – especially among the right-wing opposition but also some figures from the more liberal ruling coalition – to suggest that Poland should respond by blocking Ukraine’s accession process to join the European Union.

In an interview on Monday with Polsat, a leading Polish broadcaster, Kosiniak-Kamysz was asked about this. According to widespread media reports, he responded by saying: “With Bandera, Ukraine will not enter the EU.”

The quotation appeared in reports by major Polish outlets, including Gazeta Wyborcza, Onet, Radio Zet and Interia.

It was also repeated by English-language publications such as the Kyiv Independent and New Voice of Ukraine, as well as by Ukrainian-language media, including Hromadske Radio, Ukrainska Pravda and the Ukrainian service of Polish Radio.

However, if one watches the interview, which is available for free on the Polsat News website, it reveals that the words “With Bandera, Ukraine will not enter the EU” were actually spoken by the interviewer, Marek Tejchman, as part of a question to Kosiniak-Kamysz.

Kosiniak-Kamysz did not answer by endorsing that proposition. Instead, he referred to comments previously made by Zelensky.

“It’s like President Zelensky said: ‘No one will tell us who we can honour,’ just like no one will tell us how to vote on the entry of any state into the European Union,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said.

Earlier in the interview, he had also warned that, in the EU, “you can’t build a pantheon to those who destroy European cooperation”, and that countries seeking membership should “not build national identity…on events or people or systems that in some way raise objections or pain among EU partners or sow falsehoods”.

But nowhere in his remarks did Kosiniak-Kamysz mention Bandera or explicitly say that Ukraine could not enter the EU if it honours him.

So, why did Polish and international media attribute those words to him? The apparent source of the error is Polsat News’ own written report accompanying the interview.

While the embedded video correctly showed the full exchange, the article attributed the interviewer’s words about Bandera to Kosiniak-Kamysz and presented them as a direct quotation of him.

Subsequent reports by Polish and international media appear to have repeated the wording from the article rather than the video itself.

Stepan Bandera was the leader of a radical faction of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B) during World War Two. It was the OUN-B that, in turn, established the UPA.

Poland has long condemned the continued commemoration of Bandera and the organisation he led by some officials and institutions in modern-day Ukraine.

Nawrocki and the right-wing Polish opposition with which he is aligned have proposed laws banning the propagation of “Banderism” in Poland by placing it alongside the other prohibited ideologies of Nazism, fascism and communism.

In order for a new member state to join the EU, the consent of all existing member states is needed. Leading Polish politicians have long warned that they would not allow Ukraine to enter until issues relating to Polish-Ukrainian history are resolved, including Kosiniak-Kamysz himself in 2024.

Last year, while campaigning for the presidency, Nawrocki likewise said that he “does not envision Ukraine in either the EU or NATO until important civilisational issues for Poland are resolved”.

“A country that is not able to account for a very brutal crime against 120,000 of its neighbours cannot be part of international alliances,” added Nawrocki.

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is deputy editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She has written for Clean Energy Wire and The Times, and she hosts her own podcast, The Warsaw Wire, on Poland’s economy and energy sector. She previously worked for Reuters.

Poland has detained and charged two men – a Pole and a Belarusian – accused of conducting espionage on behalf of Belarus.

The suspects allegedly recorded members of the Belarusian minority in Poland and sent the material to Minsk. They are also alleged to have recruited others to carry out subversive activities, including photographing critical infrastructure.

The pair, a 19-year-old Belarusian, who can be named only as Aliaksei B. under Polish privacy law, and a 44-year-old Pole, Rafał G., were detained on 25 June in Warsaw by officers from the Internal Security Agency (ABW).

“The men, paid by Belarusian intelligence, took part in events organised in Warsaw by the Belarusian minority, where they recorded participants and took their photos,” said Jacek Dobrzyński, spokesman for Poland’s security services.

“The gathered materials – passed across the eastern border – were used by [Belarusian President Alexander] Lukashenko’s security services and the regime’s propaganda,” he added.

Belarusians are Poland’s second-largest foreign national group, numbering around 140,000. Among them are many figures opposed to Lukashenko who found sanctuary in Poland after fleeing persecution in Belarus. The Polish and Belarusian governments also have frosty relations.

The suspects’ actions “illustrate how foreign intelligence services are attempting to exploit even legitimate social and civic events to further their own interests”, said the ABW.

The agency added that the aim of the operation was to gather intelligence, intimidate Belarusian exiles and support the propaganda of states hostile to Poland.

In a separate statement, prosecutors also said that the suspects used the Telegram messaging service to “recruit people of various nationalities to carry out sabotage activities” in Poland, including to “photograph critical infrastructure facilities and other places key to the security of the state and its citizens”.

The alleged acts took place in the period from March 2024 until February 2025, in Warsaw and other locations across Poland, prosecutors added. The suspects were purportedly paid in cryptocurrency for carrying out the tasks.

If convicted of espionage, the pair face at least five years in prison. Aliaksei B. has been placed in pretrial detention for three months, while Rafał G. will be under police supervision, with his passport confiscated.

The ABW notes that the charges are part of an investigation that, in November last year, led to the arrest of five other people – three Belarusians and two Ukrainians. Dobrzyński added that the “case is ongoing and further arrests cannot be ruled out”.

In recent years, Poland has detained, charged and in some cases convicted a growing number of people accused of carrying out so-called “hybrid actions” on behalf of Russia and Belarus, including espionage, sabotage and spreading disinformation.

In May, the ABW released figures showing that it launched twice as many espionage investigations in 2025 as in 2024. Over those two years combined, there were more investigations than across the previous three decades.

Such hybrid actions are often not carried out through traditional agents trained at home and sent abroad to conduct missions, but through people already on the ground, often amateurs hired through Telegram and paid in cryptocurrencies.

While most such cases have related to activities orchestrated by Russia, last year a Belarusian man was sentenced to two years and two months in prison in Poland for spying on behalf of Minsk.

Olivier Sorgho

Olivier Sorgho is senior editor at Notes from Poland, covering politics, business and society. He previously worked for Reuters.

A local politician in Poland has been charged with insulting the president – a crime that carries up to three years in prison – for sharing an image on social media that prosecutors believe likened President Karol Nawrocki to the animated ogre Shrek.

However, the suspect in the case, Wojciech Ślusarczyk, denies that his post referred to Nawrocki. He also argues that it would, in any case, not be insulting to be compared to Shrek, who is a positive character.

The case began in August last year, when Ślusarczyk, who sits on the council of Radomsko county in central Poland and represents the centre-right Polish People’s Party (PSL), shared a meme (shown above) on his personal Facebook profile.

The image depicted an animated version of Nawrocki’s wife, Marta Nawrocka, dressed up in the style of a historical royal. The picture was at the time being shared widely on social media by supporters of Nawrocki.

But when he posted it, Ślusarczyk added the question “And where’s Shrek?”, in an apparent suggestion that Nawrocka looked like Shrek’s partner, Princess Fiona. 

A local newspaper, Gazeta Radomszczańska, noted at the time that Ślusarczyk’s post had caused controversy and that, soon after, a member of OdNowa, a conservative political association led by Law and Justice (PiS) MP Marcin Ociepa, had submitted a notification to prosecutors.

PSL is a member of Poland’s ruling coalition, while the national-conservative PiS is the main opposition party. Nawrocki is aligned with the opposition and was elected as president last year with the support of PiS.

On Wednesday this week, Gazeta Radomszczańska reported that prosecutors last month charged Ślusarczyk with the crime of insulting the president.

The newspaper said the decision had been made after prosecutors hired an expert in linguistics, at a cost of over 5,000 zloty (€1,166), “to answer the question of whether the word ‘Shrek’ can be considered an insult to the president”.

Ślusarczyk is additionally charged with criminal insult of Marta Nawrocka (as a natural person, not a public official) through use of mass media, a separate crime that is punishable with up to one year in prison.

Subsequently, broadcaster TVN reported that, since being charged, Ślusarczyk has now been indicted, meaning he will stand trial.

They quoted the indictment as saying that the suspect had “insulted by intentionally posting content that, in the context of a questioning form of expression combined with the sharing of a graphic, was deemed to devalue the president of Poland and his wife”.

Speaking to Gazeta Radomszczańska, Ślusarczyk’s lawyer, Michał Spólnicki, said that the charges had “no substantive justification” and that his client’s post “was directed at the authors of the image, not Marta Nawrocka or President Nawrocki”.

Positing on social media on Thursday, Ślusarczyk himself argued that, in any case, Shrek is actually a character with positive traits. “I really like Shrek. [He is] a pleasant creature,” wrote the councillor.

Ślusarczyk noted that the linguistic expert hired by prosecutors appeared to agree with him. In a 72-page opinion, she had found that Shrek is associated with “honesty, loyalty, hidden sensitivity, rebellion and authenticity” and “is used in Polish schools to teach tolerance, acceptance and critical thinking”.

The councillor then finished his post by asking: “Does the Polish prosecutor’s office really have nothing better to do than deal with this type of nonsense?”

Under article 135 of Poland’s criminal code, it is a crime to “publicly insult the president of Poland”, punishable by imprisonment of up to three years. The law has been invoked a number of times in recent years.

In June 2021, three high-school students were sentenced to community service for destroying one of the election posters of then-President Andrzej Duda and shouting “Fuck Duda” at a party.

The same month, an evangelical pastor was found guilty of insulting the president for calling him, among other things, a “traitor”, “coward” and “agent” working on behalf “of Moscow and Berlin”. In 2020, a man was sentenced to community service for drawing a penis on one of Duda’s election posters while drunk.

However, in 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that a well-known writer, Jakub Żulczyk, was not guilty of insulting the president for calling Duda a “moron” in a Facebook post.

Poland has a wide range of so-called “insult laws”. It is also illegal, among other things, to insult the Polish nation or state (punishable by up to three years in prison), state emblems (up to one year), and even monuments (community service), as well as to offend religious feelings (up to two years).

Human rights groups have often criticised such laws as a threat to free speech, and warned that they can be used for political purposes.

Speaking to Gazeta Radomszczańska, Konrad Siemaszko from the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, a Warsaw-based NGO, said that the case against Ślusarczyk is “absurd”.

“I don’t see any insult in this graphic at all. Insult is behaviour expressing contempt in an offensive form, and I don’t see any such behaviour here. Not to mention issues like protecting freedom of speech or satire,” said Siemaszko.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, says he has proposed an “anti-crisis package” to Poland following a meeting in Warsaw with his Polish counterpart, Radosław Sikorski.

The measures are intended to resolve an ongoing diplomatic dispute sparked by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision to name a military unit after a group that led massacres of Poles during World War Two.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk welcomed the move towards de-escalation, but one of his deputy foreign ministers made clear that Poland wants to see concrete action, including a “correction” of the decision to name the unit.

In a statement following his meeting with Sikorski, Sybiha declared that Poland and Ukraine are “vital” for one another, especially as they “share a common enemy, Russia”. He expressed gratitude for the “unprecedented support” Warsaw provided to Kyiv after the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022.

Referring to the current diplomatic crisis, Sybiha said that “Ukraine remains open to an equal and honest dialogue” and that he had “proposed a package of anti-crisis steps” to the Polish side.

The measures include consultations between foreign ministries, organising a meeting of historians, and “reaching out to the religious leaders of both nations to leverage their authority in our bilateral dialogue”.

Sybiha reiterated that “the Ukrainian military’s choice of unit name carried no anti-Polish intent”. However, he offered no suggestion it would be changed, instead saying “we respect the history of others, and we expect the same approach toward our own history and independence from our partners.”

In late May, Zelensky named a military unit after the “heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)”. In Ukraine, the UPA is remembered primarily for its role in fighting for Ukrainian independence from Moscow-imposed Soviet rule during and after World War Two.

In Poland, however, it is associated with the Volhynia massacres, in which the UPA led the slaughter of around 100,000 ethnic Polish civilians, mostly women and children. Poland has officially recognised the massacres as a genocide, but Ukraine rejects that label.

In response to Zelensky’s decision to name a unit after the UPA, Polish President Karol Nawrocki – who is aligned with the right-wing opposition – stripped Zelensky of Poland’s highest honour. In response, Zelensky cancelled plans to attend the Ukraine Recovery Conference that took place in Poland last week.

Speaking after Sikorski’s meeting with Sybiha, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk welcomed the fact that there are now “signals that Ukrainian politicians have realised that the escalation of tension caused by Kyiv sparked this conflict, which is detrimental to the interests of Poland and Ukraine”.

He added that he now “expects a de-escalation resulting from a change in attitude on the part of some Ukrainian politicians”, among whom it has “finally dawned…that it’s worth seeking ways to have an honest conversation about the past, and not to escalate this tension”.

Sikorski himself, speaking at a press conference, refused to divulge what specific measures were being discussed with Ukraine, saying that “diplomacy prefers silence…and requires that emotions subside”.

In a further statement, the Polish foreign ministry said that Sikorski and Sybiha had “emphasised their shared commitment to developing tools for historical dialogue based on truth and mutual respect for the past”.

“The ministers agreed that de-escalating tensions and building lasting mechanisms based on mutual understanding of history and the development of economic cooperation are crucial for fully utilising the potential of the Polish-Ukrainian partnership,” added the ministry.

However, speaking later to broadcaster Polsat, deputy foreign minister Marcin Bosacki, who took part in the talks, made clear that the Polish side “expects a correction of the decision” to name a military unit after the UPA.

“The Ukrainians keep telling us that there was no intentional aim to annoy Poland,” added Bosacki. “[But] for now, there are only declarations…We are waiting for action.”

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

By Bartłomiej Orzeł

Poland’s right-wing parties face a strategic dilemma: how to reconcile the race to out-radicalise each other with the need to win back centrist voters. The energy transition is becoming a. key battleground in this fight.

Poland’s right-wing opposition is at a crossroads. On one side, an internal dispute is playing out between Law and Justice (PiS), the Confederation (Konfederacja) of Krzysztof Bosak and Sławomir Mentzen, and Grzegorz Braun’s Confederation of the Polish Crown (KKP).

On the other, Poland’s right is competing for power not just among itself, but against the ruling coalition, made up of Civic Coalition (KO), The Left (Lewica), the Polish People’s Party (PSL), Poland 2050 (Polska 2050) and Centre (Centrum).

This situation forces the opposition, on one hand, to hold a right-wing course, while, on the other, to seek an electorate in the centre. Even with a very good campaign and sharp messaging, these two objectives cannot be simultaneously achieved in the long term.

The Green Deal is a political corpse in Poland

The obvious asset for a right-wing fishing in centrist waters should be the energy transition, which is crying out for a new narrative. The EU’s flagship Green Deal programme has become a bogeyman on Poland’s political scene.

The government and the opposition trade blame for the current situation, while Poland’s largest trade union, Solidarity, gathered tens of thousands of people in Warsaw in the middle of the working week under the banner of fighting the “Green Deal”.

It has to be said plainly – the Green Deal label as a concept is dead in Poland today and there is no going back. Research from the think tank Project Tempo, where I act as Poland lead, shows that only 19% of Poles believe the “Green Deal” (understood as a whole) is good for the European economy. Contrary to appearances, we do not stand out markedly from the EU average of 25% here.

At the same time, however, Poles generally do not oppose cleaner energy sources. In fact, they strongly support certain transition policies, such as the construction of nuclear power plants and photovoltaics. What they are primarily opposed to are the bans and mandates that the Green Deal is associated with. The name itself is toxic, but the problems the Green Deal was meant to solve are not.

At the same time, the Green Deal is so broad today that Poles feel restricted. Energy, industry, transport, buildings, agriculture: the Green Deal touches every single one of these areas, creating a sense of encirclement. This is further magnified by the fact that the Green Deal originated in Brussels. Poles do not want any further expansion of the EU’s competences at the expense of nation-states.

It is hard to deny, however, that in recent years the global economic and geopolitical challenges have posed Europe – Poland included – a very concrete problem: how to free ourselves from dependence on fossil fuel imports in order to protect households and businesses from the blackmail of dictatorships? How do you build on that foundation a new economic model capable of competing globally?

The conflict in the Strait of Hormuz has reminded us how vulnerable we are to global conflicts and the fossil fuel market. According to estimates by the Instrat think tank, that conflict alone cost us 10 billion zloty (€2.33 billion) in just two and a half months.

PiS is ashamed of its own successes

The rivalry on the right means that PiS is trying to win back those voters who have drifted to one Confederation or the other. It is doing so, however, by executing a complete U-turn on its own energy policy and adopting a far more conservative tone in a debate whose symbol has become coal.

Yet it was during the years of PiS rule from 2015 to 2023 that Poland’s biggest transformational projects got under way. Over eight years in government, starting essentially from scratch, PiS policy led to 1.38 million solar panel users in Poland.

Over that period, installed capacity in Poland rose from 71 MW to over 17,000 MW. The vast majority of those people are satisfied with their solar panels, which reduce their electricity bills.

Meanwhile, heating and insulation systems in hundreds of thousands of homes were modernised, with old solid-fuel boilers – the notorious kopciuchy that generated smog – replaced in the process. The phrase “in the process” is not accidental here: the Clean Air programme, launched under PiS, became a widely accessible modernisation scheme that went well beyond the fight against smog.

Thermal retrofitting is not just a bit of polystyrene and a new window – it is a real improvement in quality of life and savings on bills, and for Poland’s economy – a powerhouse in building materials production – it represents a powerful internal stimulus.

Finally, it was in the years 2015–2023 that a revolution began in Polish energy. The Baltic Pipe, bringing Norwegian gas to Poland, was built and the liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal expanded, while state energy giant Orlen began betting on gas extraction in the North Sea.

Investments connected with building a nuclear power station and several gas-fired plants – intended to replace coal capacity – also got under way. Roadmaps for phasing out coal across individual regions were drawn up, with particular attention to Bełchatów, Europe’s biggest coal-fired plant. 

I am not citing these facts to remind anyone of past achievements, but because this legacy of PiS policy is today not merely forgotten by the party, it is disowned entirely. Hence the numerous positive references to coal in recent statements by, among others, Przemysław Czarnek, the party’s prime ministerial candidate. There has even been talk of opening new hard-coal mines.

These references bring to mind, in some ways, 2015, when coal was talked up as “black gold” at every turn and mining was one of the most burning issues in public debate.

Next year’s parliamentary elections will take place 12 years after those events, however. The world around us has changed enormously, and the old prescriptions are not answers to today’s questions.

The falling cost of technologies such as solar panels, heat pumps and energy storage has laid the groundwork for a new energy revolution that, a decade ago, we simply could not have anticipated. This revolution – based on efficiency and flexibility – is indicated by reports from Ember, an energy think tank.

An anti-modernisation PiS is a weak PiS

In the last parliamentary elections three years ago, PiS, buoyed by a modernisation narrative, emerged from eight years in government through an exceptionally difficult period – war, the COVID-19 pandemic, global inflation and an energy crisis – with around 35% of the vote, more than any other party.

Today’s polls show the party clearly below that threshold. In this situation – even allowing for modest increases in support – it is hard to see Jarosław Kaczyński’s party securing an electoral victory.

The Confederation of Bosak and Mentzen has grown in the meantime, stepping into the role of “moderate centre” – not squeezing PiS from the right, contrary to what Kaczyński’s party imagined. The Confederates seem to have a better read on the public mood.

Research we conduct at Project Tempo shows that Poles are attached above all to two values. The first is economic growth, which Poland has recorded almost uninterruptedly since the fall of communism; the second is security in the broad sense, including energy security.

Support for coal is thin across the board. A clear minority of respondents believe that either growth or security can be delivered by coal from Polish hard-coal mines. As an energy source in general, coal is supported by 22% of the public, while support for “black gold” as a guarantor of energy autonomy stands at 38%.

By comparison: 70% of the public believes nuclear power will secure our autonomy. That gap widens further when we asked about costs to the end user: 74% of Poles view nuclear positively, while the figure for coal is 31%. To be clear: these data reflect coal’s standing against the full range of alternatives – nuclear, gas, renewables.

Awareness of the cost of coal extraction in Poland has grown significantly in recent years and – in light of successive crises, above all the outbreak of war in Ukraine, when coal was flowing into Poland from across the globe – has cast serious question marks over the safety and viability of a sector that costs us billions of zloty in subsidies each year.

The debate about domestic coal is not the same as solving the problem of rising living costs. Voters – drawing on their own lived experience, which included buying imported coal at very high prices – do not have short memories, and it would serve Poland’s right wing well to internalise that.

I would go one step further: the emotional attachment to one’s own solar panels on the roof – for many people a symbol of independence and freedom in the broadest sense – is today politically more significant than any attachment to coal.

Bosak picked up on these sentiments well; asked about it recently, he touched on precisely the freedom aspect of owning that energy source. By contrast, the coal sector now employs fewer than 70,000 people.

Poland is the most pro-nuclear nation in Europe

Individualism in decision-making is also visible in our research across political divides – both PiS and KO voters oppose the ban on gas boilers and the ban on producing combustion-engined cars after 2035. There is, by contrast, broad public support for nuclear power stations in Poland – from the left to the far right.

Project Tempo’s research shows that Poles are the most pro-nuclear nation in Europe across every dimension – autonomy, security, end-user costs, industrial competitiveness and environmental aspects, and even local job creation.

Nuclear power enjoys the highest support in the segment we have labelled “the climatically engaged”, but in second place come “conservative sceptics” – who as a rule oppose the energy transition and mostly do not believe climate change is man-made. This shows that the debate about transformation has long since moved beyond the climate field. Support exceeds 70% in both groups.

The right has the credibility to speak to this sentiment – nuclear as a pillar of development and security. PiS, which governed for eight years and put nuclear policy in motion, has clear standing on the subject.

There is a great deal to draw on across political divides in transformation policy, and across different areas – geothermal energy and hydropower are valued just as highly as nuclear, and Poles want localism in the form of energy communities.

The issue is all the more important because the risks are considerable. I share the concerns of PiS’s former European affairs minister Konrad Szymański, who wrote in March that Poland’s right wing must not allow itself to be herded into a “Polexit” narrative, as that is a harbinger of certain defeat. Diving headlong into calls for a unilateral exit from the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS), as PiS has done this year, is moving precisely in that direction.

The role and effectiveness of the ETS – and its genuine reform in a way that does not constrain European industry – is a conversation worth having, but not in that fashion. Such a debate ought to be sensibly constructed and should direct attention towards speculation and global financial institutions rather than the EU.

Meanwhile, over 80% of KO voters support building more wind turbines. Even among PiS voters, support is not insignificant, at around 47%. The same data points to an opening on the governing side too: a programme built around the specific parts of the transition that voters actually want.

The parties making up the governing majority have the potential to seek support from groups that are not entirely opposed to the transformation, but have doubts and difficulties associated with it, particularly of an economic nature. Whichever side speaks to those voters first – the centre, and those who have tuned out – will have the stronger hand going into 2027.

It is worth bearing in mind that, according to Project Tempo’s research, Poles have no doubt that European industry will sooner or later have to absorb green technologies in order to remain competitive – 73% of respondents hold this view.

Poland’s right has abandoned its own modernisation story

The next year and a half leading up to the parliamentary elections will be an enormous challenge for the right, with particular emphasis on constructing a vision of Poland’s future. This is not a debate about climate, not even strictly about energy, but about the economy, jobs, industry and prices – and about security, independence and freedom.

This story must be credible to a broader electorate – it cannot rest purely on negation. A strong right wing was previously able to impose its own modernisation narrative and tell the story of Poland’s future. Today it is not only incapable of doing that – it is actively ashamed of its own successes.

Bartłomiej Orzeł is an economist and leads Project Tempo’s Poland programme. He is a former government plenipotentiary for the Clean Air programme.

This article draws on Project Tempo research and is adapted from a piece first published in Polish by Klub Jagielloński.

About Project Tempo

Project Tempo is a European non-profit research organisation headquartered in London. It produces detailed public opinion data on energy and climate policy to help policymakers, businesses and civil society design policies that earn durable public support. Project Tempo’s flagship EuroPulse programme surveys more than 50,000 voters a year across 25 countries. It has country programmes in France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the UK. Research is published openly at projecttempo.com.

Supplementary article: Court upholds request to detain Polish ex justice minister, paving way for US extradition application

Poland’s government says it has received confirmation that Hungary has revoked the refugee status that was granted to fugitive ex-justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro by the former Hungarian government of Viktor Orbán. Ziobro’s associated travel documents have also been invalidated.

The news was welcomed by the current justice minister, Waldemar Żurek, who says that Poland will now ask the United States, where Ziobro fled after Orbán was ousted from power in Hungary, to determine whether Ziobro is allowed to remain on US territory without travel documents.

Ziobro, who served as justice minister from 2015 to 2023 under the former national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government, is wanted in Poland on suspicion of 26 crimes, including leading a criminal group and approving the unlawful purchase of Pegasus spyware.

However, he has evaded justice by fleeing first to Hungary – where he was granted asylum in December 2025 – and then to the US. Although Ziobro’s Polish passport had been invalidated, he was able to fly to the US using a so-called “Geneva passport” that can be granted to someone with refugee status.

Ziobro’s departure from Hungary came just as the new prime minister, Péter Magyar, was being sworn in. Magyar is an ally of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and had pledged to begin the process of extraditing Ziobro on his first day in office.

On Thursday afternoon, Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, confirmed that he had “received written confirmation that Hungary has revoked refugee status for Marcin Romanowski, Zbigniew Ziobro and Patrycja Kotecka-Ziobro”, and had also annulled their travel documents.

Romanowski is a former deputy minister who served under Ziobro and was also granted asylum in Hungary after fleeing criminal charges in Poland. His current whereabouts are unknown. Patrycja Kotecka-Ziobro is Ziobro’s wife.

Later on Thursday, Polish interior minister Marcin Kierwiński announced that he too had received information from his Hungarian counterpart, Gábor Pósfai, that the refugee status and travel documents of Romanowski, Ziobro and Kotecka-Ziobro had been revoked.

In response to the news, Żurek, the justice minister, said that Poland would now “reach out to the relevant institutions in the United States with a question about whether individuals deprived of valid travel documents may continue to stay on US territory”.

He also noted that, just a day earlier, a Polish court had upheld a request by prosecutors for Ziobro to be detained. That decision helps pave the way for Poland to request Ziobro’s extradition from the US.

Last week, Żurek had already told broadcaster TVN that he would contact the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) “if it turns out that the Hungarian documents on the basis of which Zbigniew Ziobro entered the United States were issued illegally”.

Speaking on Thursday to Polsat News before news had emerged of his refugee status being withdrawn, Ziobro claimed that the Polish government want ICE to deport him so that they can “bypass the extradition court procedure”.

That is because a court case would “risk exposing all their wrongdoing”, including how they have “used courts and prosecutors for political purposes”.

Ziobro also repeated his argument that he cannot currently return to Poland because he would not receive a fair trial while the justice system remains under the influence of the “lawless” current government.

During his time as justice minister, Ziobro was the architect of a series of controversial and contested judicial reforms, which Polish and European courts have repeatedly found to have violated the law and brought the justice system under political influence.

After PiS lost power in December 2023, the new, more liberal government led by Tusk began a series of investigations into alleged corruption and abuses of power under the former administration.

However, while charges have been brought against a number of former PiS officials – including former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki – none have yet gone on trial.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Polish prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into Supreme Court chief justice Zbigniew Kapiński after he was accused by fellow judges on the court of abusing his powers. Kapiński, however, claims that the move is part of a “coordinated political action” against him.

The dispute marks the latest stage of a broader conflict that has often set judges and other officials, such as Kapiński, who were appointed under the former national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government against those who regard PiS’s actions as a violation of the rule of law.

At the heart of the dispute is the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS), the body responsible for nominating judges to positions on courts. Before 2017, most of its members were chosen by judges themselves, but PiS passed that power to politicians, framing it as a move to increase democratic legitimacy

However, according to multiple Polish and European court rulings, PiS’s reforms rendered the KRS illegitimate by bringing it under political influence. As a consequence, the legality of the thousands of judges appointed since then, and all the rulings issued by them, has also been called into question.

Kapiński is one such so-called “neo-judge”, having been nominated to the Supreme Court in 2022 by the KRS.

Now prosecutors are investigating whether he abused his power between May 2024 and May 2026 while serving as head of the Supreme Court’s criminal chamber by blocking motions to exclude other “neo-judges” from cases due to doubts over their legal status.

In a statement announcing the launching of proceedings, the National Prosecutor’s Office said that the case had begun with a notification against Kapiński by fellow Supreme Court judges, who were not named.

The notification was made on 28 May 2026, just three days after PiS-aligned President Karol Nawrocki had chosen Kapiński as the new chief justice of the Supreme Court in a process that had been boycotted by many of the “old” judges appointed before the overhaul of the KRS.

Prosecutors say that, after gathering initial evidence – including witness statements and documents – there is a “reasonable suspicion of a crime”, meaning a formal investigation has been initiated.

If Kapiński is found guilty of abuse of power, he could face a prison sentence of up to three years. However, as chief justice he is protected by immunity from prosecution that can only be removed by the State Tribunal, a body he would head ex officio.

That immunity also prevented prosecutors from bringing abuse-of-power charges against Kapiński’s predecessor, Małgorzata Manowska. She was another “neo-judge” who regularly clashed with the current government, a more liberal coalition that replaced PiS in December 2023.

Speaking to broadcaster TVN on Monday evening, after the prosecutors had made their announcement, Kapiński said that he “treats [the claims against me] as a coordinated political action”.

He explained that, when heading the criminal chamber, he had issued the order to reject motions to exclude judges based on how they were appointed because such efforts were often intended to “prolong proceedings for months or even years”. He said he “cared only about the efficiency of proceedings”.

Kapiński also noted that, on the same day he was informed about the prosecutors’ decision to open proceedings, he was told by the Supreme Court’s disciplinary commissioner that a separate case against him had been sent to a Supreme Court body that reviews judges’ alleged misconduct.

He said that the disciplinary case relates to proceedings involving former PiS government ministers Maciej Wąsik and Mariusz Kamiński, both convicted in a high-profile case concerning abuses in the use of the state security services and later pardoned by PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda.

After their conviction in December 2023, they were barred from taking part in parliamentary work. Both politicians appealed the decision, which was initially set to be heard by the Supreme Court’s labour chamber.

However, Kapiński, who was acting chief justice at the time, decided to transfer one of the cases to the Supreme Court’s chamber of extraordinary review and public affairs, a body created by PiS and filled with judges nominated by the reformed KRS.

Speaking to TVN, Kapiński also responded to criticism from justice minister Waldemar Żurek, who has questioned the legality of his appointment as chief justice. Kapiński said that the minister “has some difficulty understanding the law properly”.

Responding to accusations of political bias, Kapiński noted that he had ruled in many high-profile cases involving politicians from across the political spectrum and that no evidence had ever been presented of political motivation in his decisions, even in cases that drew criticism from PiS, including the party’s chairman.

The current government has sought to reverse many of the judicial reforms introduced by PiS, including the overhaul of the KRS, but has found its efforts stymied by the veto power of PiS-aligned President Duda and his successor Nawrocki.

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is deputy editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She has written for Clean Energy Wire and The Times, and she hosts her own podcast, The Warsaw Wire, on Poland’s economy and energy sector. She previously worked for Reuters.

A group of senior Polish and Ukrainian church figures have written a joint appeal for Poles and Ukrainians to “extend a hand of reconciliation”, “courageously forgive” one another for historical wrongs, and “not remain enslaved by the past”.

Their intervention comes amid ongoing tensions between the two countries over massacres that took place during World War Two. The crisis has resulted in Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripping his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, of Poland’s highest honour.

While there have long been tensions between Poland and Ukraine over their conflicting national narratives of World War Two, the current dispute began in late May, when Zelensky named a military unit after the “heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)”.

In Ukraine, the UPA is remembered primarily for its role in fighting for Ukrainian independence from Moscow-imposed Soviet rule. In Poland, however, it is associated with the Volhynia massacres, in which the UPA led the slaughter of around 100,000 ethnic Polish civilians, mostly women and children.

Poland has officially recognised the massacres as a genocide. But Ukraine rejects that label. It also argues that the massacres took place in the context of long-standing anti-Ukrainian policies by the prewar Polish state and points out that Polish partisan units massacred Ukrainian civilians during the war.

In response to Zelensky’s decision to name a unit after the UPA, Nawrocki stripped him of the Order of the White Eagle, which had been awarded to the Ukrainian president in 2023. In response, Zelensky cancelled plans to attend the Ukraine Recovery Conference that took place in Poland last week.

Now, a group of three Polish prelates – Cardinal Grzegorz Ryś, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, and Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz – and two from Ukraine – Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and Cardinal Mykola Bychok – have responded to the crisis with a joint appeal.

The bishops said that they “are saddened to observe the growing tensions and resurgent hostility between Poles and Ukrainians”.

“It is even more painful that this is happening at a time when Ukraine continues to experience the horrors of war, and Poland has shown great solidarity with millions of Ukrainian brothers and sisters in recent years,” they added.

While they acknowledged that “remembering the past is an incredibly important element of the identity of every human community”, they warned that “the issue of reconciliation between Poles and Ukrainians concerns not only the relations between the two nations but also the credibility of our shared Christian testimony”.

The bishops recalled the words of former Polish Pope John Paul II in 2003, on the 60th anniversary of the Volhynia massacres, in which he called for “Ukrainians and Poles not [to] remain enslaved by their sad memories of the past”.

However, the pontiff also noted that “Christians…are called to acknowledge the errors of the past” and to “ask forgiveness for their own shortcomings” as well as to “forgive one another for the wrongs they have suffered”.

In that spirit, the five Polish and Ukrainian bishops now called on Poles and Ukrainians to “humbly ask for forgiveness and to courageously forgive, extending a hand of reconciliation despite still-unhealed and painful wounds”.

Moreover, they must “strive to think in terms of the common good, not just particular interests”, because “by imposing on others a particular vision of the past and future, we succumb to the dominant culture of violence and power today”.

The dispute between Poland and Ukraine shows no sign of abating. On Sunday, Zelensky declared that “no one will dictate” to Ukraine which heroes the country honours as he announced plans to establish a new national pantheon celebrating outstanding Ukrainians.

That was widely interpreted in Poland as an escalation of the dispute, with politicians from across the political spectrum in turn warning that the issue could lead Poland to hinder Ukraine’s efforts to join the European Union.

However, Poland’s government – which is regularly in conflict with the opposition-aligned Nawrocki – has sought to calm tensions. Prime Minister Donald Tusk has called the conflict between the two presidents a “strategic mistake” that will only benefit Russia.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Poland has detained and deported nine Ukrainians and two Belarusians it says were involved in a Russian operation that paid Ukrainian refugees to hold demonstrations.

The aim was to “stoke tensions” and “break down social trust”, says the Internal Security Agency (ABW).

In a statement on Monday, the ABW said that the 11 individuals have, since autumn 2025, “been recruiting and paying participants for demonstrations organised among Ukrainian refugees residing in Poland”.

“Protest participants received remuneration for their participation and, according to the ABW’s knowledge, the funds for this purpose came from Russia,” added the agency.

“The organisers aimed to gradually influence the Ukrainian refugee community in Poland and use this group to promote political slogans. Emotional topics, including corruption scandals and current events in Ukrainian domestic politics, were used to initiate protests.”

The ABW said that the operation was another example of how Moscow uses “actions below the threshold of classic aggression” that are intended to “break down social trust, stoke tensions, and use people fleeing war as tools of Russian influence operations”.

Poland has been a primary target of such Russian “hybrid actions”, which include sabotage, disinformation, espionage and cyberwarfare.

In many cases, members of Poland’s Ukrainian and Belarusian communities – which are by far the country’s largest foreign national groups – have been hired to carry out such operations. Almost a million Ukrainian refugees remain in Poland, as well as hundreds of thousands of other Ukrainian migrants.

In the latest incident, the suspects were detained in five cities – Warsaw, Wrocław, Kraków, Zakopane and Bydgoszcz – spread across Poland. Jacek Dobrzyński, the spokesman for Poland’s security services, wrote on social media that the arrests had taken place “in recent days”.

“The detainees have already been expelled from Poland,” he added, noting that the suspects included five Ukrainian men, four Ukrainian women, and two Belarusian men.

Earlier this month, Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, warned that Russia is “waging a full-scale cognitive war against us”, including “hiring groups and individuals operating under multiple layers of camouflage in operationally difficult-to-access spaces that we still do not recognise as classic theatres of war”.

Moscow’s aim is to “weaken the will to resist” by “undermining democratic values” and “keeping us in a constant state of polarisation”, said Sikorski, who also claimed that there is “a Russian fifth column here in Poland”.

Last week, Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation warned that Russia’s foreign military intelligence agency, the GRU, had been tasked with “preparing provocations” intended to exploit and exacerbate current tensions between Poland and Ukraine.

Russia has long sought to aggravate tensions between Poland and Ukraine. It stepped up those efforts in 2022, when Poland became one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters in its defence against Russian aggression and welcomed millions of Ukrainian refugees.

Last year, a Ukrainian teenager was arrested on suspicion of working on behalf of Russia to vandalise a memorial to Poles massacred by Ukrainians.

Last month, Poland charged three of its own citizens with working on behalf of Russian intelligence to spread disinformation intended to evoke support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Poland has signed an agreement worth around €4.5 billion to buy three A26 submarines from Swedish manufacturer Saab as part of efforts to modernise its navy.

The deal was among a number signed during intergovernmental consultations between Sweden and Poland today, as the two countries further strengthened an increasingly important alliance.

Last year, Poland announced that it had chosen Sweden as the preferred supplier of submarines under its Orka programme, which aims to modernise the Polish naval fleet.

Poland currently only has one submarine, a 40-year-old Soviet-era vessel that is in need of constant repair. It wants to replace that with three of the A26 Blekinge-class submarines that are being developed by Saab but have not yet gone into service.

Today, a purchase agreement for the vessels was signed in the Polish Baltic coast city of Gdynia amid talks between the two countries’ prime ministers, Donald Tusk and Ulf Kristersson, and delegations that included their foreign, finance, infrastructure and culture ministers.

Speaking at a press conference alongside Tusk, Kristersson said that the agreement was worth around 50 billion Swedish kronor (19.3 billion zloty, €4.5 billion) and that the first submarine would be delivered in 2031 (though many Polish media outlets have reported a date of 2030).

In a separate statement, Saab valued the deal at around 47 billion kronor. It noted that delivery of the submarines was scheduled to take place by 2038.

When the plans were first announced last year, the Polish government emphasised that the deal would also involve major Swedish investment in Poland’s shipbuilding industry as well as knowledge transfer.

Today, Polish state defence group PGZ announced that, alongside the submarine purchase agreement, it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Saab “paving the way for building competencies in Poland in the area of servicing and maintaining submarines”.

Kristersson said that “hundreds of Polish companies will be subcontractors to this important project”, with “our two countries sharing technology and techniques in this crucial strategic area”.

“This cooperation with Sweden is a further impetus for the development of our arms industry,” added Tusk. “This isn’t a simple matter of one side or the other purchasing, but a genuine, truly collaborative partnership that benefits both industries.”

Both leaders also emphasised that the deal was a signal of growing security and trade ties between their two countries, which in 2024 signed a strategic partnership agreement to enhance cooperation on defence, economic development and support for Ukraine.

“Our cooperation in the Baltic Sea has fundamentally changed the security situation,” declared Tusk. “We do all this also so that our region, our two countries and the Baltic Sea are an area of ​​peace and security, and not, as is the case today, an area of ​​anxiety and threat.”

“Relations between Poland and Sweden are the best they’ve ever been, deeper and stronger than ever before,” added Kristersson. “We face exactly the same challenges and share the same perspective on what’s happening now.”

In recent years, Poland has increasingly oriented itself towards the Baltic region, forming closer economic, energy and military ties with the Baltic and Nordic states.

Poland’s defence minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, today noted that the A26 submarines are specifically designed to operate in the Baltic Sea, including with stealth systems making them difficult to detect in shallow waters and tools to protect underwater infrastructure such as cables and pipelines.

There have been growing concerns in recent years over Russian actions in the Baltic, including threats to infrastructure. In response, NATO has launched a new operation to patrol the sea while Poland and Sweden last year held their first bilateral military drills in the Baltic.

Polish security news and analysis service Defence24, however, notes that there is an element of risk attached to Poland’s decision to order submarines from a programme that has been repeatedly delayed and faced ever-rising costs.

Meanwhile, it was also announced today that Poland has signed an agreement to lease an A17 *Västergötland-*class submarine, the HMS Södermanland, from Sweden as a so-called “gap filler” until the first A26 is delivered, reports industry news service WNP.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Czemu aż 7 razy karetka ratowała pracowników magazynu Rhenus w Swarzędzu w niedzielę 28 czerwca? Dlaczego tylko część ludzi odmówiła pracy w rekordowy upał, a inni ryzykowali zdrowie i życie w pracy?

W rekordowe upały 28.06 połowa pracowników popołudniowej zmiany dużego magazynu Rhenus w Swarzędzu - w większości kobiety - odmówiła pracy. Do tych, którzy zostali, pogotowie ratunkowe przyjeżdżało co najmniej 7 razy. Doszło do kilku zasłabnięć. W efekcie, jak informują członkinie związku zawodowego Inicjatywa Pracownicza w Rhenus, dyrekcja firmy wprowadziła dodatkową płatną przerwę 10-minutową. Czy to wystarczy by kolejne zmiany przestały odmawiać pracy? Związek zawodowy alarmuje o braku termometrów na magazynie - są one ustawione tylko przy stanowiskach biurowych w Rhenus. Brak też odpowiedniej wentylacji i systemów regulacji temperatury, które zapewniają stałe bezpieczeństwo zatrudnionym w firmie. Pracownicy informują też związek o niewłaściwym zachowaniu przełożonych, którzy insynuują pracownikom zgłaszającym pogorszenie zdrowia, że symulują. Praca w Rhenus odbywa się w okresie szczytu zamówień, szczególnie istotnym dla firmy. Tacy przełożeni ryzykujący zdrowie ludzi dla zysków spółki powinni zostać natychmiast odsunięci od pracy jako stanowiący zagrożenie dla pracowników.

Dyrekcja Rhenus znalazła także systemowy sposób na to aby pracownicy ryzykowali swoim zdrowiem. Rhenus bezprawnie wprowadza w błąd wieloletnich pracowników, że są na umowie na czas określony i takie wręcza im takie dokumenty, choć zgodnie z polskim prawem pracują oni już na umowach stałych. Pretekstem do przeciągania krótkich umów w nieskończoność mają być częste zmiany kontraktów, choć swarzędzki Rhenus głównie stale obsługuje towar firmy Zara. Zgodnie z kodeksem pracy zmiany zamówień nie mają żadnego znaczenia dla formy umowy - ludzie pracują w tym samym zakładzie. Niestabilne formy zatrudnienia wzbudzają obawy o utratę pracy i skłaniają do podejmowania ryzyka dla własnego zdrowia w celu jej utrzymania.

Niemiecka spółka Rhenus to jedna z największych firm logistycznych w Polsce. Jak wynika z oficjalnych sprawozdań finansowych firmy, jej przychody w Polsce biją rekordy z każdym rokiem, rosnąc z 476 milionów w 2023 do 534 milionów w 2025. Uważamy że tak bogata firma może sobie pozwolić tak zorganizować pracę, aby nie zagrażała ona zdrowiu i życiu pracowników w Swarzędzu i całej Polsce.

To wstyd, że w 70 rocznicę powstania robotniczego, Poznańskiego Czerwca 1956, ludzie w zakładach pracy w Polsce nadal muszą walczyć o swoje życie. Gratulujemy tym, którzy świętowali powstanie tak jak należy, odchodząc od stanowisk na wzór pracowników Cegielskiego i innych zakładów siedemdziesiąt lat temu.

Czas na stabilne zatrudnienie i godne warunki pracy. Najpierw ludzie, potem zyski!

BK

Czy milionowe kary od obrotów zatrzymają patologię w branży?

“Zmień firmę” - wiele razy słyszymy to od szefów i przeciwników związków zawodowych. Kiedy jednak pracownicy rzeczywiście chcą poprawić byt szukając pracy u konkurencji - coraz częściej może na nich czekać zmowa szefów. UOKiK stawia zarzuty potężnym spółkom handlowym, że pomagają w zmowie dużym firmom transportowym przeciwko kierowcom. Zmowa ma polegać na pogarszaniu warunków pracy i zaniżaniu wynagrodzeń poprzez ograniczanie konkurencji. Sieci handlowe mogły inicjować i organizować zmowę w transporcie nie wpuszczając na teren dostaw kierowców, którzy zmienili firmę na inną w tej zmowie. UOKiK zarzuca, że w ten sposób dyrekcje koncernów handlowych ograniczają nacisk na wyższe stawki w transporcie. Przystają na to szefowie firm przewozowych na szkodę własnych kierowców.

Dziś 2 czerwca UOKiK ogłosił że wszczął postępowanie przeciwko szefostwu DINO i firmom transportowym: Jar-Trans, Martrans Logistics, Euro Finannce i Mati-Trans.

— Ograniczanie pracownikom możliwości zatrudnienia i zmiany pracy to praktyki kojarzące się z XIX wiekiem. Przedsiębiorcy, którzy łamią prawo, muszą się liczyć z poważnymi konsekwencjami — kara za udział w zmowie to nawet 10 proc. obrotu. Menedżerom z kolei grozi sankcja do 2 mln zł — mówi Prezes UOKiK Tomasz Chróstny.

Tydzień wcześniej, 25 maja pracownicy UOKiK, za zgodą sądu i w asyście policji, przeszukali biura Lidla i czterech firm przewozowych współpracujących z tą siecią handlową: Omega Pilzno, spółek z grupy Van Group, FTS Ratajczak oraz Dar-Pol.

To nie pierwsze zarzuty UOKiK o taką zmowę. W lipcu 2025 prezes UOKiK wszczął podobne postępowanie przeciwko Biedronce tj Jeronimo Martins oraz aż 33 firmom transportowym podejrzanym o zmowę.

– Podejrzewamy, że firmy transportowe oraz Jeronimo Martins Polska zawarły porozumienie, którego celem miało być ograniczenie możliwości przechodzenia kierowców pomiędzy firmami transportowymi obsługującymi centra dystrybucyjne Biedronki. Tym samym przedsiębiorcy mogli chcieć uniknąć wzajemnego „podkupywania” sobie pracowników. Takie działanie jest nie tylko niezgodne z prawem ochrony konkurencji, ale również niedopuszczalne w wymiarze ludzkim. Każdy powinien mieć prawo do swobodnego wyboru oraz zmiany miejsca pracy – przekazał Prezes UOKiK. Urząd nie podał do wiadomości nazw przewoźników.

W październiku zeszłego roku UOKiK postawił podobne zarzuty kolejnym trzem firmom przewozowym: Krotrans Logistics, C.H. Robinson i Mena P.M.

Powtarzające się zarzuty UOKiK o zmowie szefów firm transportowych z udziałem największych spółek w handlu ujawniają głęboką patologię tej branży. Stawki w transporcie stoją w miejscu. Firmy skarżą się w mediach że “brakuje kierowców”, ale faktycznie brakuje godnych warunków pracy. Tymczasem kierowcy z polskich baz zajmują kluczowe miejsce w gospodarce całej Europy. Przewożą najwięcej, 20 procent towarów w całej Unii Europejskiej, (368 mld tonokilometrów). Ponad 60 procent z tego stanowi transport międzynarodowy. Bez tej ciężkiej pracy kierowców z polskich firm kompletnie załamałby się łańcuch dostaw w całej UE.

Jako kluczowi dla gospodarki Polski i UE, kierowcy z Polski są pod ogromnym naciskiem by nie zrzeszać się w związkach zawodowych i nie walczyć wspólnie o godne warunki pracy. Obok zastraszania, takiej dezorganizacji pomaga powszechna zasada “zmień firmę”. Branża nominalnie oferuje wyjątkowo duży wybór ofert. Realna poprawa warunków przez zmianę firmy jest jednak coraz rzadsza. Stawki u przewoźników obsługujących największe sieci handlowe - od Dino aż po Amazon - praktycznie stoją w miejscu od kilku lat (Amazon dotąd nie spotkał się z zarzutami UOKiK o działania przeciw kierowcom choć wiele przewoźników dla Dino czy Biedronki obsługuje także magazyny Amazon).

Zarzuty Urzędu o zmowy szefów transportu z pomocą gigantów w handlu rzucają nowe światło na problem zamrożonych stawek w Polsce. Gdy szefowie zmawiają się aby pogorszyć warunki, pracownicy powinni działać. Kierowco, nie czekaj aż pomoże Ci urząd, zrzeszaj się w związku zawodowym wraz z innymi w Twojej firmie, zgłoś się do Inicjatywy Pracowniczej.

BK

Wprowadzony w imię ochrony środowiska, Europejski System Handlu Emisjami (ETS) stał się mechanizmem spekulacji i pogarszania warunków pracy w krajach UE. Na handlu emisjami korzystają potężne instytucje finansowe i międzynarodowe korporacje, a tracą górnicy, rolnicy i ogół mieszkańców Polski i Europy. System narzucił ogromne koszty produkcji w Polsce i innych krajach UE, a zwolnił z tych kosztów „śladu węglowego” import spoza Unii. W efekcie, stał się też mechanizmem przenoszenia produkcji do krajów poza UE, które tną koszty ignorując prawa pracownicze i normy środowiskowe. ETS faworyzuje biznes w krajach, gdzie protesty są łamane pałką, a za strajki idzie się do więzienia. W Polsce ten system promujący import zrobił z portu przeładunkowego w Gdańsku jedną z największych “kopalni” węgla.

Niemal połowa importu węgla do Polski pochodzi dziś z Kazachstanu, gdzie większość kopalni kontrolują już prywatne koncerny. Stężenie metanu w surowcu jest tam dwu-, a nawet trzykrotnie wyższe niż w polskim węglu, rekordowe wycieki są tuszowane przez tamtejsze elity, a odzysku energii z metanu w zasadzie się nie praktykuje (w Polsce do 70 procent metanu przetwarza się na energię elektryczną i cieplną, w czym nasz kraj jest europejskim liderem). Do zbuntowanych robotników w Kazachstanie policja strzela z ostrej amunicji. W dodatku, władze UE zniosły w 2025 roku sankcje na import kazachskiego węgla przez rosyjskie porty. W efekcie, w imię transformacji energetycznej, UE zasila machinę wojenną Rosji i rozwija jej gospodarkę. Wobec braku realnej weryfikacji pochodzenia węgla w rosyjskich portach, nie da się też wykluczyć, że Unia importuje surowiec bezpośrednio z Rosji i terenów okupowanych.

Wskutek “zielonej transformacji” UE promującej outsourcing, korporacje w Kazachstanie ogłosiły wzrost wydobycia o ponad 10 procent w 2026 roku. Tymczasem w Polsce, gdzie sektor górniczy jest wysoce uzwiązkowiony, a więc normy środowiskowe i prawa pracownicze są znacznie bardziej przestrzegane, w tym roku zaplanowano redukcję zatrudnienia w górnictwie węglowym ze 102 tysięcy osób do około 60 tysięcy. Liczba ta spadła już do 72 tysięcy w maju 2026 r.).

Poprzez przenoszenie produkcji, system ETS podważył to, co w Polsce przez dekady wywalczyli sami pracownicy i niezależne związki zawodowe. To właśnie ludzie pracujący w branży przemysłu i wydobywczej – hutnicy czy górnicy – od zawsze są szczególnie narażeni na czynniki szkodliwe. W ciągu ostatnich dekad, ponad 200 górników w Polsce zginęło w wyniku wybuchów i zapaleń metanu. Walcząc o swoje zdrowie i życie, to ci pracownicy wymusili przestrzeganie norm ochrony środowiska jeszcze w PRL.

To niedopuszczalna manipulacja, gdy obrońcy ETS i środowiska mieniące się w Polsce jako progresywne, traktują walkę pracowników w Polsce o dobre warunki pracy i przeciwko przenoszeniu przemysłu do krajów gdzie panuje zamordyzm, jak walkę “zacofanych ludzi” z “nieuchronnym rozwojem”. W praktyce, to ślepa wiara w dobrodziejstwo spekulacji emisjami doprowadza do głębokiego regresu w długiej historii walki samych pracowników o ochronę swojego zdrowia i środowiska.

Dopiero dziś, w 2026 roku, elity UE pod naciskiem związków zawodowych próbują narzucić na import towarów wysokoemisyjnych równe zasady handlu emisjami (tzw. mechanizm CBAM). Nie można się dziwić brakowi wiary w realne skutki nowych zmian. Oparcie ochrony środowiska na spekulacji finansowej, a nie na realnej kontroli pracowniczej i społecznej, z zasady uderza w zwykłych ludzi i przynosi zyski międzynarodowym korporacjom.

Dlatego popieramy postulat związków zawodowych sektora przemysłu o zniesieniu Europejskiego Systemu Handlu Emisjami (ETS). Nie ma ochrony środowiska bez ochrony zdrowia i dobrobytu pracowników.

Pamiętajmy jednak z historii transformacji w Polsce po 1989 roku, że nie wystarczy samo zniesienie systemu ETS, żeby zatrzymać przenoszenie produkcji do tańszych krajów bez praw pracowniczych i norm ochrony środowiska. Terapia szokowa Balcerowicza oznaczała intensywną likwidację zakładów pracy w przemyśle, gdzie pracownicy mieli większą kontrolę nad warunkami pracy. Nasz kraj nadal niszczą politycy, którzy promują deregulację, prywatyzację i niszczenie związków zawodowych, czy wolny handel z krajami pozbawionymi norm środowiskowych. Taki dziki kapitalizm skutkuje pogarszaniem warunków pracy, standardów ochrony środowiska, czy jakości spożywczych artykułów.

Nie potrzebujemy więcej spekulacji, outsourcingu i kolejnych eksperckich, elitarnych programów pozbawionych kontroli społecznej. Ludziom pracy potrzebne są takie rozwiązania, które skupią się na poprawie ich bytu. Zamiast spekulacji i outsourcingu w imię ekologii, potrzebujemy żeby milionerzy podzielili się zyskami, które im wytwarzamy: świata nie uratuje ETS ale większa stabilność zatrudnienia, skrócenie czasu pracy i zmniejszenie zabójczego tempa pracy. Tego programu nie wdrożą unijne elity, tylko niezależny ruch pracowniczy.

Solidarność z górnikami ze Śląska i Lubelszczyzny walczącymi 20 maja o godne miejsca pracy.

Komisja krajowa Ogólnopolskiego Związku Zawodowego Inicjatywa Pracownicza

🎧 W kolejnym odcinku naszego podcastu - z serii "Poza Granicami" - rozmawiamy z dr hab. Zbigniewem Szmytem z Zakładu Antropologii Kulturowej UAM i Centrum Badań Migracyjnych. Zbigniew opowiada o poborze wojskowym w Rosji oraz dobrowolnej służbie kontraktowej, mówi o przymusowym wcielaniu młodych mężczyzn do armii, jak i wstępowaniu do wojska z powodów ekonomicznych. Jakiej narodowości i z jakich grup społecznych rekrutuje się żołnierzy? Jakie warunki czekają ich na froncie? Czy z rosyjskiego wojska można zdezerterować? Posłuchajcie sami!

🔗 Linki:
▪ Raport "WAR AND STATE AMONG ETHNIC MINORITIES IN RUSSIA": https://journals.iaepan.pl/ethp/issue/view/210/274
▪ Organizacja"Get Lost": https://iditelesom.org/en

📧 Dołącz do szeregów OZZ Inicjatywa Pracownicza: wstapdoip@ozzip.pl

💰 Wspieraj Inicjatywę Pracowniczą w serwisie Patronite! Jeśli uważasz, że to, co robimy, ma sens, dołącz do grona naszych patronek i patronów. Każda wpłacona przez Ciebie złotówka pozwala nam rozwijać niezależny ruch pracowniczy w Polsce. Dziękujemy!

🔗 Link do naszego profilu na Patronite: www.patronite.pl/ozzip.

Poland has announced plans to build a third liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal as part of efforts to become a hub supplying gas to other countries in the region.

“This is a historic decision for Polish energy security,” said energy minister Miłosz Motyka. “We are building a new security architecture for Europe and strengthening our position as a regional energy hub.”

Poland currently has one operating LNG terminal, located in Świnoujście on the Baltic coast. It opened in December 2015 and has the capacity to receive 8.3 billion cubic meters (bcm) a year.

In 2028, a second terminal – a floating storage regasification unit (FSRU), meaning a specialised vessel that can receive, store and regasify LNG – is due to open in the Bay of Gdańsk. Currently under construction in South Korea, that facility will add a further capacity of 6.1 bcm.

However, even though the second terminal is yet to launch, Gaz-System, Poland’s state gas transmission operator, last year began gauging interest from neighbouring countries in LNG imports, with the aim of assessing whether another FSRU in Gdańsk would be needed.

On Tuesday this week, Gaz-System confirmed that this third terminal would go ahead. Once complete, it will bring Poland’s total regasification capacity to over 20 bcm a year.

Discussing the plans ahead of a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Tusk said that the third terminal will “consolidate Poland’s role as a gas hub”, adding that “commercial interest in this venture is so strong that this investment won’t require any financial support from the state budget”.

With regard to the planned second terminal, four companies – Polish state energy firms Orlen, PGE and Enea, as well as the private company Unimot – have now confirmed that they have signed deals giving them long-term access.

This means that Orlen will no longer have a monopoly on access to LNG import infrastructure in Poland. Gaz-System says that “increased competition and better infrastructure utilisation [will] contribute to the sustainable reduction of gas supply costs”.

LNG has been a major element of Poland’s efforts over the last decade to diversify away from Russian energy supplies. Those plans were accelerated in 2022 by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, after which Poland quickly moved to entirely end Russian coal, oil and gas deliveries.

LNG deliveries have mostly come from the United States and Qatar. In 2022, Poland also opened the Baltic Pipe, which brings gas from Norway via Denmark.

While supplies have mainly been for domestic use, last year a delegation led by Poland’s finance minister, Andrzej Domański, visited Washington for talks on Poland becoming a hub for supplying US gas to neighbouring Ukraine and Slovakia.

Gaz-System said on Tuesday that Poland’s infrastructure, including interconnectors with Denmark, Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, will enable the country to import up to 50 bcm of gas annually from 2030.

Olivier Sorgho

Olivier Sorgho is senior editor at Notes from Poland, covering politics, business and society. He previously worked for Reuters.