POLAND: Breaking Budget Rules? & more – 1st May 2025

Witam from BA! This is the Rorshok Poland Update from the 1st of May twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Poland.

Let’s kick off with updates on security. On Wednesday, the 30th, Poland officially asked the EU if it could break the usual budget rules for a while so it could spend more on defense. Other countries, including Germany, Estonia, Latvia, and Greece, asked for the same thing.

Normally, these rules keep countries' budget deficits and debt under strict limits, but there’s an exception for special situations like the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Right now, EU countries can spend money as long as their deficit is under three percent of their GDPs and their debt is below sixty percent.

The EU is now reviewing these requests and will decide by the 4th of June, with final recommendations coming in July. Countries will still have to stick to the EU’s overall budget rules in the long run despite this extra flexibility.

Still on defense, on Monday, the 28th, the daily newspaper Puls Biznesu reported that the government would build a new military factory later this year as part of Poland's push to modernize its military. The factory will focus on producing vehicles for Poland's Narew and Wisła air defense systems and the Homar rocket artillery.

On top of that, Poland will expand ammunition production at the Dezamet plant, a Polish defense manufacturer located in Nowa Dęba, in southeastern Poland. Dezamet aims to become the top ammunition producer in Poland.

Skarżysko-Kamienna, in south-central Poland, and Pionki, in the central region, also joined in the expansion. The country’s looking to rely less on others and build up its own military ammunition for the long run.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the 30th, the Ministry of Education announced that from the 12th of May to the 20th of June, soldiers from the Polish Army will visit about 3,500 schools to teach students about safety, emergencies, and national defense as a part of the Education with the Military program.

The Ministries of Education and Defense launched it in twenty twenty-three, and after reaching 100,000 kids last year, they’re planning to do it again this year.

During the visits, soldiers will hold age-appropriate sessions—both in classrooms and outside—covering things like how to stay safe during emergencies, spot fake news or cyberattacks, pack a proper emergency bag, understand alarm signals, and give basic first aid.

The goal is to help students become more aware of safety and defense issues and to teach them how to be more prepared and responsible, especially with the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

On Tuesday, the 29th, Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister, announced that the country would invest over 700 million zloty, which is about 187 million dollars, into Rafako and Rafamet, two engineering companies in the Silesia region in southwestern Poland, through the Industrial Development Agency.

The money will save Rafako, which went bankrupt last December due to rising material costs, delayed payments from clients, and issues completing big contracts, as well as its supplier, Rafamet. The funds will not only keep the companies going but also help them set up new production lines, with some of the work shifting to defense production.

Tusk said this is part of a bigger plan to boost Poland’s industrial sector in Silesia, using both local and European money. Some people think it’s a good move to create jobs, while others aren’t sure it’ll fix the bigger issues like rising materials costs.

Next up, foreign affairs. On Tuesday, the 29th, the 10th Three Seas Summit took place in Warsaw, where Montenegro and Albania officially joined the initiative, while Turkey and Spain became strategic partners.

President Andrzej Duda launched the Three Seas Initiative in twenty fifteen to strengthen cooperation among EU nations in the Baltic, Adriatic, and Black Seas.

It focuses on improving infrastructure, energy security, and economic cooperation in the region, while reducing countries' reliance on external energy sources, especially from Russia. It also pushes for investments in important projects, like transportation networks and energy grids, to improve the region’s connectivity.

Speaking of energy, on Monday, the 28th, Polish Nuclear Power Plants, a company in charge of building and managing nuclear power plants in the country, and US companies Westinghouse and Bechtel signed the Engineering Development Agreement to build Poland’s first nuclear power plant.

According to the deal, construction will start within the next three years, and the plant should be running by twenty thirty-six. The companies will build it on the country’s Baltic coast in the Lubiatowo-Kopalino coastal area, in northern Poland, with over sixty billion zloty, which is about fourteen billion dollars.

PM Tusk said the Polish-American partnership in nuclear energy is stronger than ever and that more investments might come.

With the presidential elections coming up on the 18th of May, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said this week that there was a huge rise in fake information on the internet about how and when to vote, and about the candidates' views, past actions and character.

Some of it comes from Russian sources, which target people outside Poland through English-language media.

The Ministry also found fake news on Twitter, where almost 300 misleading posts appeared over a month. These posts used old articles and screenshots from Polish news sources, hoping people wouldn’t bother checking the full story, to cause division, spread lies about political opponents, and promote pro-Kremlin messages.

The ministry has asked social media platforms to improve their content moderation and remind voters to stick to trusted official sources.

Next up, new social programs. On Monday, the 28th, Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, the Minister of Family, Labor and Social Policy, announced that later this year Poland will launch a new trial program to explore how shorter working hours might work, and it will invest ten million zloty, which is almost three million dollars.

Companies, local governments, non-profits, schools and universities that want to join will try out different ways to reduce working hours, such as shorter days, four-day working weeks, or more time off while still paying employees their regular salaries.

Minister Dziemianowicz-Bąk said it’s time for people to work less without losing income. She added that past research shows shorter hours can lead to healthier, less burned-out employees who make fewer mistakes, without hurting company profits.

On sad news, on Tuesday, the 29th, Izabela Leszczyna, the Health Minister, confirmed that a thirty-five-year-old man fatally stabbed Dr. Tomasz Solecki, an expert in orthopedic surgery and sports medicine, during a consultation at a clinic in Kraków, in southern Poland.

Adam Bodnar, the Justice Minister, said that the attacker, who worked in a prison, had been flagged for issues with his work as early as twenty twenty. The prison still hired him due to staff shortages and lower recruitment standards. The minister said they’re checking if the attacker was fit for the job and looking into his mental health.

The attacker is denying the murder charges, but if he is found guilty, he could get anywhere from eight to twenty-five years in prison or even a life sentence.

On the same day, hospitals across Poland observed a minute of silence to remember Dr. Solecki. On the 10th of May, healthcare workers will wear black ribbons and march in Warsaw to stand against violence toward medical staff.

Finally, on Tuesday, the 29th, the Polish Center for Public Opinion Research published a poll showing that Poles are now a lot less certain about how they feel about their country’s relations with the US.

The survey ran from the 3rd of April to the 13th of April and included 1,030 adults aged eighteen and over.

More than half of respondents now say Poland and US relations are just okay, and only thirty-one percent still think they are good, compared to eighty percent who felt that way last year. More people now think that it is the US that is mostly benefiting from the partnership, and more also see America’s influence in the world as negative. Most respondents also said that Donald Trump as president makes them uneasy.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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