POLAND: EU Council Presidency & more – 9th Jan 2025

Witam from BA! This is the Rorshok Poland Update from the 9th of January twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Poland.

Let’s start off with foreign affairs. On Wednesday, the 1st, Poland began its six-month presidency term of the Council of the European Union, focusing on security, defense and helping Ukraine fight its war against Russia. Poland also plans to boost the EU military industry and simplify the Union’s regulations to attract more businesses.

On Friday, the 3rd, the official inauguration ceremony of Poland’s EU presidency took place at the Wielki Theater in the capital, Warsaw. António Costa, the European Council President, attended the ceremony and congratulated Poland for taking a leadership position in the EU.

On Wednesday, the 8th, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the Belarusian opposition leader, arrived in Poland for a three-day visit. She met with Prime Minister Donald Tusk to talk about the upcoming January presidential elections in Belarus, where Alexander Lukashenko, the current president, will run for a seventh consecutive term.

Tsikhanouskaya said that fair elections in Belarus were impossible because opposition leaders were imprisoned and independent media was silenced, including Polish nationals like Andrzej Poczobut, a journalist and member of the Union of Poles in Belarus. The Belarusian regime charged him with inciting hatred and participating in an extremist group. Donald Tusk showed Poland's support for Belarus and its fight for a democratic future.

Also on Wednesday, Szymon Hołownia, the Speaker of the lower house of parliament, announced details on Poland’s upcoming presidential elections, which will take place on the 18th of May, with a second round on the 1st of June in case no candidate secures more than fifty percent of the votes. The leading candidates are Rafał Trzaskowski, the Civic Coalition party member and the current mayor of Warsaw, and Karol Nawrocki, the head of the Institute of National Remembrance and the Law and Justice party member.

Szymon Hołownia is also a candidate, but according to recent polls by the Public Opinion Research Center, he is not likely to win. President Andrzej Duda, who has served two terms as president since twenty fifteen, is ineligible for a third term.

More about the elections as on Monday, the 6th, Radosław Sikorski, Poland's Foreign Minister, attended the Ambassador’s Conference in Paris and talked about the upcoming Polish elections. He said that it's illegal to interfere with the elections, especially following the UK government’s accusations against Elon Musk for influencing the political process there.

Sikorski also talked about the arrest of Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram, saying that creating laws to prevent social media from influencing politics is better than making arrests. He added that the EU should spend more on the military to stop Russia from gaining strength.

Additionally, Poland and France will soon finalize and sign a cooperation treaty in areas like security and defense.

Speaking of security, on Thursday, the 2nd, the government approved a new law to replace the original red and white insignia on F-35 planes with a gray checkerboard design. Military experts criticized the design because it ignored traditional heraldic principles, which say the checkerboard plates on each side of the plane should be mirrored. However, the Ministry of National Defense kept them symmetrical instead.

This change is important because the checkerboard pattern that follows heraldic principles is a historic symbol of the Polish military, and ignoring these rules could harm its image both at home and abroad.

Let’s dive deeper into new laws, On Tuesday, the 7th, the Justice Ministry asked the government to reject the new civil partnership legislation because people could misuse it for financial gain. In October twenty twenty-four, Katarzyna Kotula, the Equality Minister, proposed a draft bill to give civil partnerships similar rights to marriages, such as inheritance, access to medical information, and property ownership, excluding adoption rights.

The law will give legal recognition and security to LGBT couples who are not allowed to marry in Poland.

However, the Justice Ministry warned that some people, like foreigners, could misuse the law to gain property ownership rights avoiding restrictions.

Let’s get back to Poland’s presidency of the EU Council for a minute. On Wednesday, the 8th, Poland’s Ministry of Agriculture ordered 82,000 apples from local Polish farms to serve at official EU Council events. Poland is a leading apple supplier in Europe, producing over 4 million tons of apples annually.

In twenty twenty-three, Poland exported over 817,000 tons of apples to countries like Germany, Romania, and Spain. The country served strawberries to guests during its first EU presidency in twenty eleven. This year, the Ministry of Agriculture has chosen apples to promote and support local farmers.

Next in line, health news. On Tuesday, the 7th, the District Prosecutor's Office in Wrocław, in southwestern Poland, started an investigation into the emergency medical service team of the city after receiving a report from emergency medical service authorities, following a complaint from one woman. According to the report, paramedics did gynecological exams on young women without permission.

In Poland, paramedics are only allowed to collect a patient’s medical history or help in emergency situations like childbirth, heart attack, or strokes.

In more health updates, on Sunday, the 5th, Poltransplant, the Coordination Center for Transplantation in Poland, published a report showing that Polish surgeons performed 2,197 organ transplants in twenty twenty-four, surpassing the 1,805 carried out in twenty twenty-three. Most of the transplants came from deceased donors, while only five percent were from living donors.

This success was partly due to the cooperation between hospitals and transplant coordinators, who reached out to the families of the deceased to request donations. Kidneys, livers, and lungs remained the most common transplants.

On the same day, the Polish Press Agency media outlet revealed that Fedlan Kılıçaslan, a Turkish businessman and owner of FAF Software Company, bought one of Poland’s most expensive residences, the apartment in the Gold forty-four skyscraper in Warsaw worth nine million dollars. The deal attracted public attention due to the controversial backgrounds of both the buyer and the seller. Rafał Zaorski, a Polish businessman known as the king of Polish speculators, purchased the apartment in twenty twenty-two for five million dollars and tried to sell it by splitting it into shares, but the plan failed. On the other hand, Kılıçaslan has faced accusations of illegal gambling and money laundering.

On another note, on Wednesday, the 8th, the Transport and Logistics Poland association and the SpotData analytics center published a report on Poland’s road transport industry and its significant decline over the past two years. The number of companies going bankrupt grew from five percent in twenty twenty-one to thirteen percent in twenty twenty-four. Fifty-four percent of transport firms saw their revenues decline over the past two years, and thirty-seven percent expect a further decline.

Poland's share of the EU freight market grew from five percent in two thousand four to twenty percent in twenty twenty-four, surpassing Germany, but experts believe there will be no further growth due to labor shortages, EU transport regulation challenges, and competition from other EU countries. Additionally, Polish firms issued fewer driver certificates to employees from Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova, pointing to a shortage of drivers.

In some sad news, on Wednesday, the 8th, Jurek Owsiak, the head of the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity or WOŚP, made a post on social media saying he received death threats ahead of the thirty-third charity event on the 26th of January. Some people with nationalistic and extreme conservative views hate him and the foundation for its political involvement and public stance on various issues, such as supporting tolerance, the LGBTQ+ community, and criticizing government policies on public health.

Owsiak said hate speech and threats are dangerous, citing the twenty nineteen stabbing death of Gdańsk Mayor Paweł Adamowicz during the WOŚP finale.

The police are investigating the threats and looking for possible cases of hatred against him and the WOŚP on social media and YouTube. Authorities also stressed that there would be zero tolerance for spreading hate.

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

Thanks for sticking around for this episode of the Rorshok Poland update! Thank you for your support, shares, and feedback. Got ideas, suggestions, or just want to say hi? Just drop us a line at info@rorshok.com.

Here’s to another year of keeping you on the loop with what's going down in Poland. Happy twenty twenty-five!

Do zobaczenia!