WARSAW — Poland’s government on Friday put forward a proposal for civil partnerships that strains the ruling coalition, disappoints LGBTQ+ rights activists and has little chance of being signed into law by right-wing President Karol Nawrocki. The issue has haunted the four-party coalition headed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk since it won power from the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party two years ago.  Efforts to move on the issue were blocked by frictions within Tusk’s four-party coalition, with the resistance led by the agrarian Polish People’s Party (PSL). That forced the government to put forward a bill that tries to keep PSL on board, but does little to satisfy the coalition’s centrist and left-wing backers because it offers a civil partnership status that falls well short of marriage. Tusk underlined the unsatisfactory compromise that produced the legislation. “The nature of this coalition … lead to a situation where either there is complete deadlock and nothing can be done, or a compromise is sought that will certainly make people’s lives easier and more bearable … although no one will be jumping for joy,” Tusk told reporters. Nawrocki, a PiS ally, has long made clear he would oppose legal provisions establishing “quasi-marriages” or otherwise threatening the traditional institution. Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of PiS, denounced the bill on Friday, saying it was not only “grossly unconstitutional, but aims to replace traditional marriage with pseudo-unions.” PSL and PiS are long-time competitors for votes in the conservative Polish countryside, where the Roman Catholic Church still holds sway. Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, the leader of PSL, said he does not find that the proposed civil union status mirrors marriage. “It makes life easier,” he said. “It’s not a proposal of our dreams, it’s a proposal of the coalition reality and with Karol Nawrocki as president,” Katarzyna Kotula, the Left’s minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, told a press briefing in the parliament Friday, referring to months of talks with PSL on the issue. INOFFENSIVE LEGISLATION As officials presented the basics of the proposal, Kotula treaded carefully, making no direct mention of LGBTQ+ families, marriage, or adoption — all no-goes for the agrarians. “The proposal excludes any provisions related to children, such as custody or adoption. There only are practical measures intended to make life easier for Poles,” Urszula Pasławska, a PSL MP, told the briefing.  “The law would not, in any way, infringe upon or undermine the institution of marriage,” Pasławska added. Under Poland’s constitution, marriage is defined as “a union between a woman and a man.” Poles’ support for marriage equality ranges from 40 to 50 percent, depending on the poll, but backing for civil partnerships is higher. The draft legislative proposal, titled somewhat awkwardly the “law on the status of a close person in a relationship and on a cohabitation agreement,” seeks to define rights and obligations between partners in an informal relationship. It doesn’t specify the sex of the partners. The draft outlines provisions on “mutual respect, support, care, loyalty and cooperation for the common good,” Kotula said. It guarantees the right to shared housing, mutual alimony, access to each other’s medical information, exemption from inheritance and donation taxes, and joint tax filing for couples who declare shared property. The draft would also provide relief from civil transaction taxes, entitlement to a survivor’s pension, inheritance under a will, access to health insurance for both partners and care leave. But that falls far short of allowing same-sex couples to get married — something that’s increasingly common in other EU countries. The bill got tepid praise from the Campaign Against Homophobia, an NGO. “It proposes modest, cautious measures that offer a little bit of safety to those who previously had none. It’s a step forward — but so small and careful that it’s hard to see in it the courage that all families in Poland truly deserve,” it said. In the campaign’s latest annual ranking of LGBTQ+ rights, Poland is the second-lowest in the EU, a slight increase from previous years when it was last. LGBTQ+ rights organization Miłość Nie Wyklucza (Love Does Not Exclude) said the proposal does contain some progressive solutions, but it creates the danger of freezing further progress, said Hubert Sobecki, one of the group’s leaders. “What am I supposed to do now, kiss their hands in gratitude? We’re going to have two kinds of people in Poland. Those who can marry legally and enjoy all that comes with it and those who don’t,” Sobecki said.

WARSAW — One of the groupings making up Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s ruling coalition is splitting in the wake of a disappointing presidential election that saw the candidate backed by the nationalist opposition win. However, the split between the Polish People’s Party (PSL) and Poland 2050, which formed an electoral alliance in 2023 called the Third Way, doesn’t endanger Tusk’s hold on power as neither party is quitting his coalition. Karol Nawrocki’s victory on June 1 shook the government; Tusk attempted to rally his backers by holding a vote of confidence last week. The Third Way’s presidential candidate, parliament Speaker Szymon Hołownia, won just 5 percent of the vote in the first round of the election, exacerbating tensions both inside the Third Way and within the broader coalition. His candidacy was seen as having undermined Tusk-backed liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski. Tusk’s government now faces a reinvigorated Law and Justice (PiS) party backed by Nawrocki in the next general election in 2027. Since February, polls have shown the Third Way on the verge of the 8 percent threshold a coalition needs to win seats in the Polish parliament. Individual parties face a lower 5 percent threshold. “We are preparing for a solo run. We have our own potential, our values and programs,” PSL leader and Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz told Radio Zet on Wednesday. Kosiniak-Kamysz described the Third Way’s brief existence as a success that helped remove PiS from power in 2023. He also acknowledged that discussions about the split had been ongoing. “The perspective of running independently brings us genuine political joy,” Hołownia wrote on X, adding that Poland 2050 would agree on its political direction at a meeting on June 28. The split applies only to the 2027 election campaign. In parliament, both parties operate separate parliamentary clubs and remain members of Tusk’s coalition government.

WARSAW — U.S. President Donald Trump acquired another powerful European ally after Karol Nawrocki’s victory in Sunday’s Polish presidential election. It’s terrible news for Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose domestic reform agenda is now in tatters after the failure of liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski to win the presidency, defeated 50.89 percent to 49.11 percent by Nawrocki. Getting Trzaskowski into the ornate presidential palace in downtown Warsaw that once housed Russian governors was crucial to Tusk’s hopes of restoring rule of law and powering ahead with a domestic agenda that included everything from reform of the social security system to changes to hot-button social issues like allowing same-sex partnerships and loosening Poland’s draconian abortion rules. Perhaps most worryingly for Poland’s government, a win for Trzaskowski was also meant to offer certainty over Poland’s access to billions of euros of EU funds. Nawrocki’s victory now raises questions about this financial lifeblood as he is likely to block key judicial reforms. “Tusk’s reform agenda is, if not dead in the water, then at least dying,” said Ben Stanley, an associate professor at the Center for the Study of Democracy at the SWPS University in Warsaw. POPULISTS IN POWER Nawrocki joins other Central European populists such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico who are skeptical about the EU, keen on Trump and his vision of destroying traditional elites and unleashing culture wars, and lukewarm toward Ukraine and its fight for survival against Russia. “Trzaskowski’s win would have meant a unified voice for Warsaw on European and transatlantic affairs, but with Nawrocki, we’re likely to see a much stronger split — especially on eastern policy and relations with the U.S., which differ from Tusk’s approach,” said Adam Traczyk, executive director at More In Common, an international think tank. During the campaign, Nawrocki visited Trump in the the Oval Office and received no-holds-barred support from U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. “Donald Trump is a strong leader for us, but you have an opportunity to have just as strong of a leader in Karol if you make him the leader of this country,” she said while in Poland, and denounced Trzaskowski as a “socialist” and “an absolute train wreck of a leader.” Nawrocki, who trumpets traditional values, is no fan of LGBTQ+ rights, wants a halt to most immigration, is leery of ambitious EU projects and said he would block Ukraine’s effort to join NATO. But unlike Fico and Orbán, who rule their countries, Nawrocki has a more marginal role. Polish presidents have a mostly ceremonial function, but they can veto legislation. This is a particular problem for Tusk, whose parliamentary majority cannot overrride the veto. That’s what incumbent President Andrzej Duda, backed by the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, has been doing since Tusk and his coalition took power in December 2023. Nawrocki will continue that effort. “Nawrocki will see blocking Tusk’s every move not only as a means to stymieing the government’s rule-of-law reforms, but also as a means of proving the coalition’s lack of efficacy ahead of the next parliamentary elections,” Stanley said. A ‘RUTHLESS’ LEADER Confrontation is already in the air. Immediately after the polls closed on Sunday night, and when it was still unclear who had won, Nawrocki said his victory was crucial to prevent Tusk from seizing absolute power. Jacek Sasin, a senior member of PiS, said on Monday that Nawrocki will be a “ruthless” president. “Karol Nawrocki will not back down from anything, he will not make any compromises. He will pursue the interests of Poland and Poles very strongly,” he told Radio Zet. Nawrocki’s victory is unlikely to have much of an impact on foreign and EU policy, where the government takes the lead. That means Tusk’s approach of junking the eight years of isolationism, EU-skepticism and anti-German views that dominated when PiS ruled from 2015 to 2023 won’t change. Tusk is pushing hard for Poland to set the direction of the EU alongside Germany and France. Until Sunday he had been a leader of the triumvirate, with French President Emmanuel Macron damaged politically, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz still finding his feet. Now Tusk joins the ranks of the walking wounded. Weakened at home, Tusk is unlikely to remain the EU’s standard-bearer for mainstream politics and a counter to populism, said Renata Mieńkowska-Norkiene, a political scientist at the University of Warsaw who specializes in European integration. “Tusk let his attention drift away from domestic politics, as he focused on international matters more. Now he’s going to pay the price,” Mieńkowska-Norkiene said. But making progress in domestic politics will be very difficult. Thanks to dissensions with the ruling coalition and opposition from Duda, the Tusk government didn’t manage to ease Poland’s strict abortion laws, legalize civil partnerships, build more housing, or give environmental protection higher priority. With PiS ebullient over Nawrocki’s victory and preparing to storm back to power in the 2027 parliamentary election — or earlier if it can force a collapse of the government — Nawrocki has little reason to play ball with Tusk. Frustration over the lack of progress is driving down the government’s support; it’s down to just 32 percent in May from a high of 41 percent in early 2024. Meanwhile, the percentage of those opposing the government has risen to 44 percent, the highest since Tusk took office. That also leaves the effort to return Poland to rule of law uncompleted. During PiS’s time in office, the party went to war with Brussels over its deep changes to the legal system, which the EU said undermined the bloc’s democratic principles by politicizing judges. In response, the European Commission froze €137 billion in EU funds earmarked for Poland. The Commission unblocked those funds last year, but largely on the strength of promises from Tusk and not on many concrete steps to reform the justice system, which were blocked by Duda. When asked whether the government could now risk losing those funds, European Commission Spokesperson Markus Lammert said: “We will continue monitoring and we will support the government in their efforts.” “The rule of law repair process in Poland just got incredibly more difficult,” Jakub Jaraczewski, a researcher at Reporting Democracy, a think tank focused on rule of law, posted on social media. “I expect President Nawrocki to be even less cooperative than Duda, as Nawrocki will work hard for a PiS parliamentary election victory. Tough times ahead.”

WARSAW — Donald Trump and his followers have a clear favorite in Sunday’s Polish presidential vote — populist right-winger Karol Nawrocki. However, Poles haven’t yet made up their minds. All the polling in the last couple of weeks shows a statistical dead heat between Nawrocki and his liberal rival, Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski. The winner will determine whether the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who backs Trzaskowski, can speed up its legislative agenda and continue Poland’s process of reintegration with the EU mainstream. Nawrocki, backed by the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party that ruled Poland from 2015 to 2023, promises a return to traditional values that will block Tusk and once again put Warsaw at odds with Brussels. WHO ARE THE CANDIDATES? Trzaskowski, 53, is a long-time politician who has served as a minister and was also a member of the European Parliament. He narrowly failed in a bid to become president five years ago against incumbent Andrzej Duda. The multi-lingual son of a jazz musician has been the mayor of Warsaw, Poland’s largest city and its political, cultural and economic hub, since 2018. There he enraged conservatives by backing cultural diversity and LGBTQ+ rights, as well as not allowing Christian crosses in new office buildings. He is a deputy leader of the centrist Civic Platform party led by Tusk — which has opened him up to attacks for being closely associated with an increasingly unpopular government. Nawrocki, 42, is a political neophyte. He was chosen to run as the PiS candidate although he is not a member of the party. The historian was the director of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk, where he came under fire over accusations he had changed the exhibit to underline Polish suffering during the war. He’s now head of the Institute of National Remembrance, a state body that investigates crimes against the Polish nation by the Nazis and the communists. Initially, Nawrocki touted his credentials by jogging and doing push-ups, but the campaign has been brutal for him. Karol Nawrocki, 42, is a political neophyte. | Darek Delmanowicz/EFE via EPA In March it emerged that he had appeared on a TV show in disguise, blurred out and using a pseudonym, to promote a book he had written on organized crime and to praise himself. Then he came under fire after he was accused of improperly taking over an elderly man’s apartment. He’s admitted to taking part in pitched fist-fights among football hooligans. In recent days he’s been fending off accusations that he had secured prostitutes at a luxury hotel on the Baltic Sea, where he was working as a security guard. As well, a probe into the remembrance institute found spending that was “mismanaged, unreliable, in violation of the law.” WHERE DOES THE RACE STAND? On a knife edge. Trzaskowski narrowly won the first round of the presidential election on May 18 with just under 31.4 percent of the vote. Nawrocki was close behind at 29.5 percent. Polling done since then hasn’t changed much, with Trzaskowski generally ahead by around a percentage point, but within the margin of error of the surveys. The two have been scrambling to pick up the votes of the minor candidates who were knocked out of the race. Traszkowski is likely to get those of candidates from the centrist and left-wing parties that make up Tusk’s ruling coalition. The big push is for the disaffected voters angry with both PiS and Civic Platform. Far-left candidate Adrian Zandberg took 4.9 percent, antisemite and Euroskeptic Grzegorz Braun took 6.3 percent and Sławomir Mentzen, leader of the far-right libertarian Confederation party, got 14.8 percent. After meeting Nawrocki and Trzaskowski on his popular YouTube livestream, Mentzen ultimately ruled out supporting either man. Nawrocki signed on to a list of demands from Mentzen, including blocking Ukraine from joining NATO. Mentzen denounced Trzaskowski as a “leftist” but then had a beer with him and Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski. WHY SHOULD I CARE? Poland is a fast-rising European powerhouse. Its economy has exploded from a post-communist basket case into a prosperous member of the EU. It has the largest army in the bloc, spends the most on defense of any NATO member, and is a frontline nation whose support is crucial for Ukraine to continue the fight against Russia. The presidential race will have a big say on whether Poland plays in the EU’s big league or if it retreats back into isolation alongside other populist-governed countries in Central Europe like Hungary and Slovakia. During PiS’s eight years in power it got into fights with the EU and other allies over efforts to politicize the justice system, attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, tightening abortion rules and using state money for party aims. However, it also directed a deluge of money toward poorer voters and gave often-ignored people from smaller towns and villages a sense that their more conservative values were important. IS THE PRESIDENT IMPORTANT? Poland’s president is a largely ceremonial job — the incumbent gets to live in a fancy palace, signs off on people becoming professors, generals and ambassadors, and is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, although it’s the government that sets foreign and military policy, not the president. He can initiate legislation. But he does have real power — albeit of a negative kind. A president can veto bills that can only be overridden with a three-fifths majority in parliament. That’s a level no party has in Poland’s deeply divided political landscape. The president can also send legislation to be analyzed by the Constitutional Tribunal, a top court, which is largely equivalent to a veto. Rafał Trzaskowski, 53, is a long-time politician who has served as a minister and was also a member of the European Parliament. | Andrzej Jackowski/EFE via EPA Tusk spelled out the perks of the job in 2010: “honors, chandeliers, a palace and a veto.” PiS-backed President Duda has blocked much of Tusk’s legislative agenda, leading to growing frustration among his voters and one of the reasons that the government is seeing a steady fall in public support. Running with PiS’s backing, Nawrocki is the party’s chance to keep an important power center under control and continue to torpedo the Tusk government, hoping to fan disillusionment until the next general election in 2027. Trzaskowski would end all government excuses for inaction. It would also likely set off a civil war within PiS and a battle with Mentzen’s Confederation over which party dominates the right. In the final stretch of the campaign, Trzaskowski has been doing a straddle — cozying up to far-right voters while ensuring left-leaning voters don’t abandon him and mobilizing people who abstained in the first round. Trzaskowski has bet on positive messaging, emphasizing cooperation and accord in place of “chaos and uproar,” as well as his experience as mayor and minister. “Choose wisely, there’ll be no returns,” he told one of his final rallies Thursday. At one his gatherings, Nawrocki said voters will have to choose either a “flesh-and-blood man” who has “come a long way,” and knows what life is like for ordinary Poles, or a “coward” beholden to “German foundations, German capital, developers, bankers and millionaires.” WHERE DOES TRUMP COME IN? Poland isn’t Canada, where opposition to Trump handed a victory to Prime Minister Mark Carney. Poland is one of Europe’s most pro-American countries, where the U.S. is seen as the ultimate guarantor of Poland’s security. Trzaskowski has stressed Poland’s (and his) close relationship with the U.S. “Americans and President Trump are very pragmatic; I have never said a bad word about President Trump, and I have a sensational relationship with the Republicans,” he said. But Nawrocki visited Trump in the Oval Office in early May, where he said Trump told him: “You will win.” At this week’s CPAC Poland, the first time the MAGA conservative conference has been held in Poland, Trump’s homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, endorsed Nawrocki. “Donald Trump is a strong leader for us, but you have an opportunity to have just as strong of a leader in Karol if you make him the leader of this country,” she said, and denounced Trzaskowski as a “socialist” and “an absolute train wreck of a leader.” Wojciech Kość contributed to this report from Warsaw.

WARSAW — Poland’s halting effort to restore the rule of law and fully return to the EU mainstream will be decided in Sunday’s presidential vote. Liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, backed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, is neck-and-neck with right-winger Karol Nawrocki, supported by the populist-nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) opposition party. If Trzaskowski wins, he promises to speed up efforts to restore the rule of law, currently stalled by PiS-aligned incumbent President Andrzej Duda. But a Nawrocki victory would block Tusk’s government for the remainder of its term. Sunday’s outcome means either a clean break with Poland’s past as one of the bad boys of the EU, or a return to a more turbulent relationship with Brussels. When PiS was in power from 2015 to 2023, Warsaw tangled with the EU over its tough abortion laws, freedom of speech, clampdowns on LGBTQ+ rights, corruption, and backsliding on the rule of law. Tusk’s 2023 victory ended many of those tensions, a process that would be finalized with a Trzaskowski win. If Nawrocki becomes president, however, Tusk will have a very difficult time clearing the agenda of the difficulties of the past. Tusk’s people blame the slow pace of change on Duda — highlighting the need for a change of president. “We haven’t delivered on rule of law, that’s right. The responsibility lies with the man currently residing in the presidential palace,” Paweł Śliz, an MP for the Third Way, one of Tusk’s coalition allies and the head of the parliamentary Justice and Human Rights Committee, told POLITICO. Under Tusk, Poland is back as one of the leading countries in the EU, setting the bloc’s direction alongside Germany and France. But his core promise of undoing the legal changes pushed through by PiS in the eight years it ruled Poland has fallen flat. “There is really nothing more important for a modern nation than a set of rights and duties recognized as common, without exception,” Tusk told the parliament in his inaugural address as Poland’s new prime minister in December 2023. PiS deeply changed Poland’s legal system during its eight years in power, such as by putting a key judge-appointing body under its political control. As a result, Brussels and international law watchdogs accused it of politicizing courts and judges, with the EU freezing over €100 billion in funds in retaliation. The Commission has since unblocked the cash, but largely on the basis of Tusk’s promises rather than an actual rollback of the PiS-era reforms. That could change after Sunday’s vote. On the campaign trail, Rafał Trzaskowski has promised to fix rule-of-law problems. | Tomasz Wojtasik/EFE via EPA On the campaign trail, Trzaskowski has promised to fix rule-of-law problems. “I will certainly sign a bill to put an end to chaos and dualism in the judiciary,” he said in January. Tusk and other coalition leaders pleaded with voters last Sunday to back Trzaskowski. “It’s now or never,” Tusk told some 150,000 people who turned up in Warsaw for a rally to encourage high turnout on June 1. “Trzaskowski is expected to be a president who will smoothly cooperate with the Tusk government on all fronts and in particular when it comes to the rule of law,” said Jakub Jaraczewski, a researcher at Reporting Democracy, a think tank focused on rule of law across the EU. But Nawrocki, for his part, blames Tusk for Poland’s rule-of-law problems. He has promised to keep PiS-appointed judges and to slow reform of the judge-appointing system.  “Nawrocki is expected to be the polar opposite — a likely complete blocker of any initiatives of the coalition on the rule-of-law front. The restoration of an independent judiciary in Poland is literally on the ballot on Sunday — even if, paradoxically, it occupies next to zero space in the campaign debate,” Jaraczewski added. DUDA PLAYS BLOCKER The president insists that the legal changes he approved under the former PiS government should not be undone. Duda has been able to stymie Tusk’s efforts, such as by vetoing key bills to reform the National Council of the Judiciary, a judge-appointing body that is at the heart of the changes PiS introduced. Efforts to revamp electoral laws skewed under PiS have also come to little. The governing coalition doesn’t have the votes in parliament to override the president. Duda has also sent other bills for study to the PiS-dominated Constitutional Tribunal, a top court, which in reality kills them. The Tusk government refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the tribunal, as some judges were appointed in questionable fashion, so it ignores unfavorable verdicts. Duda has also blocked efforts to replace senior officials and PiS-appointed ambassadors. A Nawrocki win would continue that policy of obstruction, representing a huge political danger for Tusk. Opinion polls show support for his coalition eroding as voters grow frustrated over its inability to follow through on most of the promises it made during the 2023 campaign — ranging from undoing PiS’s legal reforms to prosecuting former officials on allegations of wrongdoing, changing Poland’s draconian abortion laws and more. “A victory for Mr Trzaskowski will provide the Tusk government with renewed momentum and a clear two-and-a-half-year run before the next parliamentary election, during which it can rebuild its support base and restore a sense of purpose,” wrote Aleks Szczerbiak,  a professor at the University of Sussex who studies Polish politics. As president, Trzaskowski would spur a flood of legislation, said Śliz, the Tusk-led coalition MP. “These laws should reach him as quickly as possible. These include [reforming] the National Council of the Judiciary, getting the Constitutional Tribunal in order, and separating the roles of prosecutor and justice minister,” he said. But even if Trzaskowski replaces Duda, a return to the pre-PiS era is out of the question, said Maria Skóra, a political analyst and a visiting researcher at the European Policy Centre. The problem is that the PiS-sponsored changes to the judiciary have taken root, with hundreds of judges — who the Tusk government says were wrongfully appointed — carrying out daily work affecting thousands of people. “All these actions aimed at restoring the rule of law should ensure that citizens are not harmed, because if we have court rulings issued daily, abruptly cancelling them or overturning them would cause tremendous chaos,” Skóra said.

WARSAW — In a 1989 Polish movie, “300 Miles to Heaven,” two brothers stow away to Sweden underneath a truck. More than three decades later, people are risking their lives to get into Poland. Saad, an Iraqi national who only gave his first name since he’s awaiting a government decision granting him protection and wants to stay “below the radar,” is a 36-year-old pharmacist. He made it through the thick bogs and forests on the Polish-Belarusian border three years ago, just as migration was becoming a top political issue in Poland. Historically a nation of emigrants, Poland is starting to pull in growing numbers of immigrants — ranging from asylum-seekers like Saad to millions of Ukrainian refugees escaping the war, to hundreds of thousands of people from across the world looking to benefit from its fast-growing economy. That demographic change in what was, until very recently, one of Europe’s most ethnically homogenous countries, is having a political impact. “Ten years ago we had 100,000 migrants in Poland, today it’s 2.5 million people. We need to think about whether we are undermining social cohesion. It seems to me that this number is currently the borderline,”  Maciej Duszczyk, the deputy interior minister, told Poland’s TVN television last year. He was speaking as the government of PM Donald Tusk put forward its new migration policy until 2030, entitled: “Regaining control, ensuring safety.” The politics surrounding migration will only get more intense. Poles elect their new president in May, and the issue is a top concern.  Tusk has moved to clamp down on asylum-seekers like Saad — following in the footsteps of his predecessors from the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party. “We are facing a hybrid — and increasingly intense — war on the Polish border,” Tusk said. Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, has encouraged people wanting to enter the EU to fly to Minsk and then cross illegally into Poland — a scheme that Polish governments as well as the EU have denounced as a bid to destabilize them. “I’m Iraqi but I was living in Turkey when I heard you could travel to Poland and try applying for international protection there. I paid some money and they flew us to Minsk and then they took us to the border. It was September 2021,” said Saad, speaking at a Warsaw café. “We are facing a hybrid — and increasingly intense — war on the Polish border,” Tusk said. | John Thys/AFP via Getty Images Polish border guards try to force asylum seekers back into Belarus — earning them condemnation from human rights groups. Saad said he was “pushed back a few times. The last time I injured my leg and was lucky to end up in a hospital where I was asked if I wanted to apply for protection.” The growing number of newcomers is causing fears that they won’t easily integrate into Polish society. After an attack on a Christmas fair in the German town of Magdeburg by a Saudi immigrant who espoused far-right views, Tusk called for a clear declaration from President Andrzej Duda and the opposition PiS “about supporting the government’s package tightening visa and asylum laws.” “The state is regaining control over borders and migration after years of chaos and corruption, so at least do not interfere,” Tusk said, referring to allegations that a visas-for-bribes scheme under the previous PiS government had let in hundreds of thousands of people from Africa, Latin America and Muslim countries. PiS says Tusk’s efforts are misguided. “It’s the EU’s migration pact that is a problem and suspending asylum laws doesn’t do much to address it,” former PiS Deputy Prime Minister Mariusz Błaszczak told POLITICO. “The migration pact aims to facilitate further waves of migrants from North Africa and the Middle East. It’s not a solution to the problem but rather a way of making it worse, and Prime Minister Tusk has done nothing about it.” RICHER AND LESS HOMOGENEOUS According to estimates, some 2.5 million to 2.8 million immigrants live in Poland, or from 6.6 percent to 7.5 percent of a population of 37.5 million people. That’s a seismic change from the not-too-distant past: After World War II, which saw most Polish Jews murdered by Germany and minorities ethically cleansed by the Soviets, ethnic Poles made up over 98 percent of the population. After the war, ethnic Poles made up over 98 percent of the population. | Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images Today about three-quarters of  immigrants are Ukrainians, who had been coming to Poland in large numbers even before Russia attacked their country three years ago — attracted both by jobs and by cultural and linguistic ties. “It’s so much easier here. If you could survive Ukraine, Poland feels as if you were on vacation,” said Yuriy Bilichenko, who runs a small but successful automotive business in Grudziądz, a town of 100,000 in northern Poland.  “You don’t have to pay bribes for everything and anything you want to do here. I know Poles like to complain about their health-care services, but the last time I was in Ukraine a few years ago I had to buy all the basic stuff I needed out of my own pocket.” Migrants from much farther away are also arriving in ever-larger numbers. The big draw is the country’s economy — Poland’s GDP is 2.4 times larger than it was in 2004, the year it joined the EU, and an astonishing 12 times larger than in 1989, the year communist rule ended. Its GDP is forecast to grow by 3.6 percent this year, one of the highest rates in the EU. The influx is causing tension among Poles, with 42 percent saying their country should shut the door on arrivals, a June poll showed. Only 14 percent would welcome migrants from all over the world, while 35 percent were sympathetic only toward migrants from Belarus and Ukraine. POLITICS OF MIGRATION While PiS has long publicly denounced large-scale migration, the current anti-migration stance of Tusk and his centrist Civic Coalition party is a major change of tack. While in opposition, some Civic Coalition MPs visited the Belarusian border to hand out food and blankets to migrants stranded in no-man’s land between the two countries. Tusk himself called migrants “poor people seeking their place on Earth.” Now, the Tusk government is continuing the PiS policy of building a fortified barrier along the Polish-Belarusian border, which has environmentalists up in arms due to the destruction it causes to protected natural areas. The influx is causing tension among Poles, with 42 percent saying their country should shut the door on arrivals, a June poll showed. | Sergei Gapon/AFP via Getty Images But in a country worried about security and migration, the political consequences of a lax border policy can be severe. “If we can prevent an attack by Russia and Belarus, it’s the price that we have to pay, I think,”said Duszczyk, the deputy minister. NOT ALL HYBRID WAR The motivations of the newcomers are extremely diverse. Shalot (who asked that her last name not be used) first arrived in Poland in mid-2022 from rural Uganda, where she faced criminal charges for being a lesbian. She spent a few months in Sweden, where she suffered abuse. She was deported back to Poland after her Polish work visa expired. When POLITICO met Shalot, 24, at a Warsaw mall in late October, she was awaiting a review of her international protection application. The news of the government’s plans to overhaul the migration rules terrified her. “I’m scared to death about having to go back to Uganda,” she said. By December her application had been approved, and she was determined to stay in Poland. “I feel good about my protection and I feel my life is safe. If there aren’t any changes, I’m going to stay in Poland and wait until I’m eligible to become a citizen,” she said. The government’s new migration strategy has NGOs distraught that it is trampling on human rights for political gain. Human rights organizations are disappointed with Tusk and his government, which they supported in the hope it would end scaremongering on migration. Instead, the government has stepped up its anti-migration rhetoric and actions, said Magdalena Nazimek, an expert at Migration Consortium, a Warsaw-based NGO. “It’s easier to play on fear of migration rather than do something positive about it, since scaremongering pays off politically much faster. A war next door also helps in that respect,” Nazimek said. “The government’s migration strategy is exactly that: a narrative based on fear, depicting migrants as evil — except when they can be used as cheap labor.” The government’s strategy does admit that Poland will need more people. The country has a fertility rate of 1.16 children per woman — one of the lowest in Europe. Deaths outnumber births, and the population is projected to fall to under 20 million by the end of the century. That could undermine Poland’s long-running economic miracle. But with the presidential campaign picking up steam, macroeconomic considerations seem likely to give way to attempts by political parties to outdo one another on clamping down on migration.

WARSAW — Poland’s one-time rulers from the Law and Justice (PiS) party want to do it again. The right-wing party, which controlled Polish politics between 2015 and 2023 with a majority in the parliament, a loyal president, and public media on standby, is once again fielding an underdog candidate to take on a strong favorite in next year’s presidential election. Historian Karol Nawrocki — nominated to be PiS’s candidate even though he’s not a member of the party — is trailing in all polls behind Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, the candidate of Civic Platform, the party of Prime Minister Donald Tusk. It’s a familiar spot for PiS. In 2015, the party’s candidate Andrzej Duda rose from being a virtual nobody on the backbenches of the European Parliament to defeat President Bronisław Komorowski — taking advantage of the incumbent’s fatal combination of running a smug and inept campaign.  Duda’s shock victory helped PiS sweep the parliamentary election later that year.  The stakes are just as high now. May’s presidential vote will be a make-or-break moment for Tusk’s government. Duda has effectively obstructed much of its legislative agenda thanks to his veto power. PiS’s continued control of the presidential palace would block the remainder of Tusk’s term ending in 2027, and could help a broader revival of the nationalist party’s electoral fortunes. Nawrocki was picked by PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński over any of the household-name party insiders like former Prime Ministers Mateusz Morawiecki or Beata Szydło. He ran Poland’s World War II museum and also the Institute of National Remembrance, a body that catalogues wartime crimes against the Polish nation — all key touchstones for nationalist voters. Nawrocki’s campaign is seeking to close fast with Trzaskowski. The PiS-backed candidate is already touring Poland extensively, aiming to cement the image of being an ordinary Pole. COMPLACENCY KILLS In his early appearances, Nawrocki, 41, has jogged, taken part boxing training and done push-ups. That was mocked by some political insiders, but the memories of Komorowski’s catastrophic defeat should not be forgotten, said Ben Stanley, an associate professor at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Poland’s SWPS University. The feeling that “it’s all in the bag” is what Trzaskowski and his camp must not give in to, he said. “Ten years ago, there was this assumption that there was nobody Komorowski could lose to. By the time he realized it’s a fight, the momentum was with Duda. Trzaskowski better not let the same complacency set in or he will be making the same mistake,” Stanley said. Civic Platform candidate and Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski is leading in polls. | Jarek Praszkiewicz/ Poland Out/EFE via EPA PiS is trying to contrast Nawrocki’s supposed outsider status with 52-year-old Trzaskowski — a former Cabinet minister, member of the European Parliament, two-time mayor of Poland’s largest city and senior member of the country’s ruling party. “Nawrocki isn’t a member of any party and he’s running against a government party candidate, the deputy head of Civic Platform,” Paweł Szefernaker, the chief of Nawrocki’s campaign, told POLITICO. The strategist claimed Nawrocki’s strength lies with his working-class background, which makes him feel at ease while meeting “normal people,” be they rural women, local firemen, or “anyone, really, who grew up in a block of flats,” a typical reference to unprivileged life in Poland. “Trzaskowski is the candidate of the elites, he just doesn’t understand where people like Nawrocki are coming from,” Szefernaker said. The theme of the elites versus the people is one that PiS is likely to keep hammering in Nawrocki’s campaign, which has so far focused heavily on small-town and rural Poland. The party is aiming to paint Trzaskowski as an out-of-touch liberal, denouncing him for taking crosses out of Warsaw government offices and strongly backing LGBTQ+ rights. However, Trzaskowski does bring a lot of experience to the race. He came pretty close to winning the presidency in 2020, losing to Duda by some 400,000 votes, or just over 2 percentage points, after a campaign that his backers said was unfair because of PiS’s control over public media, which heavily favored Duda. Trzaskowski also isn’t shying away from hitting the road and facing ordinary people. On one morning he was filmed in a campaign event helping a farmer load his truck with crates of vegetables. POLLS OF POLES Early polling shows Trzaskowski with a commanding lead. One survey has Trzaskowski with 38.6 percent support, while Nawrocki has 23.3 percent, while another poll, concerning a hypothetical run-off vote between the two, has Trzaskowski at 46 percent and Nawrocki at 34 percent. But that’s little comfort for the Warsaw mayor. Komorowski held a seemingly insurmountable 15-percentage point lead over Duda less than two weeks before the election in 2015. Duda went on to win both the first round and the run-off vote, which takes place between the top two candidates two weeks after the first round if no one wins an outright majority. The 2025 election is also likely to need a run-off — and both candidates are already hunting for additional votes. Trzaskowski can fish for support among the backers of the other parties in the ruling coalition, whose own presidential candidates will have been knocked out in the first round. A question remains over who the far-right Confederation party — whose candidate got 14 percent in a recent poll — will back in a second round. Nawrocki has fewer places to seek more votes, but will be looking for voters disenchanted with Tusk’s first year in power, said Jakub Jaraczewski, a researcher at Reporting Democracy, a think-tank. “If Trzaskowski overcomes the image of being too middle-class Warsaw to understand, say, a farmer from somewhere far away from the capital, he’s still running the risk of being attacked or the government’s failures, especially economic ones,” Jaraczewski said. Szefernaker said the government’s ineptitude will be a strong campaign point. “We’re going to fight for every voter who feels they were deceived by the government, which failed to deliver on so many issues they had promised,” Szefernaker said. The government is awake to that danger. It rushed to increase the supply of butter on the market, releasing 1,000 tons from of the country’s strategic reserves in December, after skyrocketing prices in the run-up to Christmas made the cost of living a campaign topic. “Shops are being flooded with pre-Christmas price hikes, and what is the government doing? I urge the government to restore the zero percent VAT rate on food. Immediately. This can be done before Christmas. You get to work!” Nawrocki said in a video posted on X on Dec. 18. On the same day, Trzaskowski aired his first video of the campaign — also focusing on bread-and-butter domestic issues. “Enough of naively understood globalization. We need to focus on ensuring that the Polish economy regains competitiveness and is as strong as possible,” Trzaskowski said.

Hungary’s ambassador to Warsaw is not welcome at Friday’s inauguration gala of the Polish presidency of the Council of the EU, a government minister said. Formerly warm relations between Poland and Hungary have turned chilly in recent months, and are in the freezer after Hungary in December granted political asylum to fugitive Polish former Deputy Justice Minister Marcin Romanowski, prompting fury from the Polish side. That has spilled over into the new year, as Poland takes the reins of the Council of the EU’s rotating presidency — which Hungary held in the latter half of 2024 — opening with a celebration at Warsaw’s Grand Theatre. “We invited the entire diplomatic corps, but after the situation with Mr. Romanowski, [Foreign] Minister Sikorski sent a note to the Hungarian ambassador that he was not a welcome guest at the theater,” said Polish Deputy European Affairs Minister Magdalena Sobkowiak-Czarnecka. She added that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was not invited either. “We are waiting to see if a lower-ranking representative will appear,” she said. Romanowski, an MP with the nationalist opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, faces 11 charges in Poland for misuse of public funds when he was deputy justice minister from 2019 to 2023. A Warsaw court issued a European arrest warrant for him shortly before Hungary granted his asylum. Relations between the two countries have become increasingly hostile since the current Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his centrist coalition defeated PiS in late 2023 — with the two governments taking different sides (Poland, pro Kyiv; Hungary, sympathetic to Moscow) over the European response to Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine. According to Polish news outlet Onet, the Hungarian ambassador was invited to the gala and even confirmed his presence few weeks ago. In response to the Polish decision, the Hungarian Foreign Affairs Ministry wrote in an email to POLITICO: “According to Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, two terms are competitive in connection with the decision of the Polish Foreign Minister’s colleague: pathetic and childish.” Csongor Körömi contributed to this report.

Poland’s government reacted with rage Friday to a decision by Hungary’s government to grant political asylum to fugitive former Polish Deputy Justice Minister Marcin Romanowski. Budapest announced the asylum on Thursday night.  The move marks a further breakdown in relations between Poland and Hungary, with Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski calling it an “unfriendly step” by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s populist government. Sikorski’s ministry summoned the Hungarian ambassador on Friday morning. “We consider the decision to grant political asylum to Marcin Romanowski, who is wanted under a European arrest warrant, to be an act hostile to the Republic of Poland and contrary to the elementary principles binding the member states of the European Union,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. “Justifying this decision with alleged political persecution is an insult to citizens and Polish authorities,” it added. Romanowski, an MP with the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, faces 11 charges in Poland for misuse of public funds when he was deputy justice minister from 2019 to 2023. Over the summer, the Polish parliament lifted his immunity, and on Thursday a Warsaw court issued a European arrest warrant for him. In a video message on X posted Thursday, Romanowski accused Polish Prime Donald Tusk and Justice Minister Adam Bodnar of “illegally usurping power” and of improperly prosecuting him. Tusk’s government has launched a campaign to prosecute officials from the previous government accused of wrongdoing. When PiS was in power from 2015 to 2023 it cultivated close relations with Orbán’s Fidesz party, as both ran into trouble with the European Commission over allegations they were backsliding on the bloc’s democratic principles. Relations between Poland and Hungary have become increasingly hostile after Tusk and his centrist coalition defeated PiS in late 2023. Tusk on Friday denounced the Hungarian decision, comparing the government in Budapest to Alexander Lukashenko’s dictatorship in Belarus. “I did not expect that corrupt officials fleeing justice could choose between Lukashenko and Orbán in seeking refuge from justice,” he told reporters. It wouldn’t be the first time that Hungary has granted political asylum to friendly politicians, as it did in 2018 to former Prime Minister of North Macedonia Nikola Gruevski when he was sentenced to two years in prison for corruption in his home country.  But according to the spokesperson for the Polish prosecutor general, there is no precedent for an EU country granting political asylum to politicians from another member country.  However, the minister heading Orbán’s office, Gergely Gulyás, insisted the decision is in line with Hungarian and EU regulations.  “In [Romanowski’s] case, there is concrete evidence of a lack of a fair trial, as he was arrested this summer despite having immunity as a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe,” Gulyás said in an interview with government-aligned newspaper Mandiner. According to Gulyás, the Hungarian state “cannot have access to the proceedings of an authority in another country, nor can we comment on the merits of the accusation,” but it can grant political asylum if the person’s case is not judged impartially and free from political influence.  “This risk exists today in Poland in general and in this specific case in particular, based on the procedure so far,” Gulyás added. But Tusk insisted that the asylum grant won’t protect Romanowski. “All those who think that they will be able to use these tricks and dodges and go unpunished are wrong. Here I can assure you that our state is strong and efficient enough to make sure that this type of situation has a good end,” he said.

WARSAW — Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski is running to be a candidate in his country’s May presidential election — but his wife, the U.S. historian and journalist Anne Applebaum, is a very high-profile and mordant critic of Donald Trump. How does that play out? Dangerously, according to Sikorski’s critics. Poland’s main foreign policy ally and arms supplier is the United States, and the anti-Sikorski camp is warning that even the smallest ructions in relations with Trump — a man to bear grudges —would be disastrous for a nation on NATO’s front line against Russia. Some of Sikorski’s adversaries also say they’ve already taken steps to poison Trump against him. Sikorski is one of two candidates running in Friday’s primary for the Civic Coalition party, headed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The winner will be announced on Saturday. Applebaum, a Pulitzer Prize winner who writes for The Atlantic, frequently warns of rising authoritarianism around the world and of the danger that Trump poses to American democracy. A recent Atlantic column was entitled: “Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini.” Dominik Tarczyński, a member of the European Parliament with the nationalist opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, tagged along for the Republican election night victory party and said he specifically noted Applebaum’s comments in a note to Trump’s campaign. “I can disclose that Donald Trump’s staff has received all materials with negative statements about him,” he said. “Donald Trump is aware of what Radosław Sikorski’s wife wrote about him, [and] what Polish politicians, including Donald Tusk, said about him.” That sparked a withering response from Sikorski, who denounced “sucking up and snitching” by opposition politicians. Applebaum’s stance on Trump has also been raised by Polish media, with interviewers querying whether it undermines Sikorski’s presidential bid. “My wife is an outstanding historian and publicist. Also in the American context. By the way, in the past she also voted for Republicans,” Sikorski fired back in an interview on state TV. In response to a question from POLITICO, Applebaum said: “The era when wives were treated as extensions of their husbands is over. I have no role in this campaign or my husband’s job. Given that [Vice President-elect] JD Vance has described Donald Trump as ‘Hitler,’ I am surprised that a serious publication would devote time to such a cynical, contrived narrative.” Anne Applebaum, a Pulitzer Prize winner who writes for The Atlantic, frequently warns of rising authoritarianism around the world. | Sean Gallup/Getty Images Although Trump has in the past expressed affection for Poland, and had close ties with the PiS government that ruled the country during his first term as president, it’s unlikely that the country will be a foreign policy priority compared with China and trade tariffs. Additionally, as Applebaum pointed out, many people have said negative things about Trump, which hasn’t harmed their ability to do business with him. For PiS, however, Applebaum is simply a means to attack Sikorski, who is the more conservative of the two primary candidates. Sikorski’s rival is liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who narrowly lost the 2020 presidential election to incumbent PiS-allied Andrzej Duda. Poland has a two-round voting system. If a candidate fails to win an outright majority in the first round, a second round is held two weeks later with the top two vote winners facing off against each other. According to an internal party survey made public earlier this week, Trzaskowski leads the (so far unnamed) PiS candidate by 40 percent to 28 percent, and in the second round would secure a comfortable 57-43 win.  Sikorski, meanwhile, would trail the PiS candidate in the first round, losing 28-30, but would still claim victory in the second round with 54 percent to 46 percent. In the second round, Sikorski would likely look for support on the center right — overlapping with PiS — while Trzaskowski would likely hunt for extra votes on the left. Sikorski’s biggest popular appeal is his experience in international diplomacy and his long-standing hawkish stance on Russia, something he has underlined in a time of geopolitical turmoil. Speaking excellent English, Sikorski has proven an effective opponent of Russian lies on the international stage. He has launched an aggressive primary campaign, and won the backing of diverse figures such as conservative lawmaker Roman Giertych and former two-time leftist President Aleksander Kwaśniewski. “We were on opposite sides of the political divide once but times have changed,” Kwaśniewski said in a video circulated on social media. “There’s a war near us, the threat is close, and security issues will dominate political life for years to come, especially the upcoming presidential election.” “You have to admit that if someone can bring together a coalition ranging from Giertych to Kwaśniewski, it means they know how to unite Poles,” Sikorski quipped at a rally in the central city of Łódź. PiS has timed the unveiling of its presidential frontrunner for Saturday after a final decision by party chief Jarosław Kaczyński.