POLAND: EU Court Case Against Poland & more – 18th Dec 2025

Witam from BA! This is the Rorshok Poland Update from the 18th of December twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Poland.

On Thursday, the 11th, the European Commission announced it’s taking Poland to the EU’s top court because it hasn’t fully followed EU rules, which require assigning lawyers to everyone during police questioning or early stages of investigation. The EU says Polish law sometimes lets police question people or gather evidence without a lawyer, and it doesn’t always keep lawyer-client conversations private.

Poland also isn’t properly notifying parents or guardians when kids are detained, and it’s not properly following rules for European Arrest Warrants, which let one EU country ask for someone’s arrest in another EU member state.

The EU first warned Poland in May twenty twenty-four, but after giving it a year to fix the problems and seeing little progress, it decided to take the case to court.

On Monday, the 15th, Poland’s Public Procurement Office announced that hackers broke in and accessed employees’ emails, including some at the National Appeals Chamber.

Krzysztof Gawkowski, the Deputy Prime Minister, said investigators are working to find out who’s behind the attack, while cybersecurity teams are securing the Office’s systems and preventing further damage.

Gawkowski also reminded public offices and companies to keep a close eye on their online security and follow the National Cybersecurity System rules.

Meanwhile, on Monday, the 15th, Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister, held talks in Berlin with European leaders, Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy, and US envoys. He said the US, Europe, and Ukraine are more united against Russia than ever.

They discussed security guarantees for Ukraine, potential joint military support, and keeping NATO’s eastern flank strong. Tusk said that any decisions about Ukraine’s territory are up to Ukraine, and that Poland won’t send troops to an international mission but will help with logistics and transport.

US President Donald Trump joined by phone and said that a deal to end the war is closer than ever.

Next up, on Sunday, the 14th, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister, kicked off a two-day trip to Turkey, focusing on strengthening defense and strategic ties.

During the visit, Polish and Turkish officials signed a military and industrial cooperation deal to run joint exercises, exchange important military and security information, and create opportunities to export Polish defense technologies, including military gear, like Passive Location Radars, to Turkey, which is upgrading its armed forces.

Kosiniak-Kamysz said that Poland and Turkey are strong allies, and working together helps improve NATO and EU security, especially along the eastern and southern NATO borders.

On Monday, the 15th, Karol Rabenda, the minister in the Presidential Chancellery, announced that President Karol Nawrocki changed Poland’s mining law. The new rules, which will take effect on the 1st of January, twenty twenty-six, will support miners forced to quit their jobs due to mine closures, offering paid leave and one-time tax-free severance payments of 170,000 złoty, about 47,000 dollars.

The protections cover workers at major mining companies, including administrative staff and employees in specialized departments such as maintenance or investment teams.

This law comes alongside planned mine closures and mergers because Poland is looking to restructure the coal industry, save money, and shift toward cleaner energy. Closing coal mines over the next ten years will cost around eleven billion złoty, about three billion dollars, with thousands of workers expected to take leave or other benefits under the new rules.

Speaking of new laws, on Wednesday, the 17th, Waldemar Żurek, the Justice Minister, said the government wants to revise existing laws and penalties for crimes involving minors after the killing of an eleven-year-old girl in Jelenia Góra, southwestern Poland. The child died from knife wounds, and a twelve-year-old girl from the same primary school is the main suspect.

Żurek said that the current law allows a court to place the girl in a juvenile correctional facility until she turns twenty-four, but he believes that even though judges can hand out long sentences, that punishment alone is not enough.

The minister said he’ll discuss with the interior ministry concrete prevention steps like monitoring kids online, spotting risky behavior early, supporting families, and improving access to mental health care.

Changes are also hitting the industrial sector, as on Friday, the 12th, Korean tiremaker Kumho announced plans to build a new factory in the Opole-Wrzoski district in the city of Opole in southern Poland, buying thirty hectares of land for thirty-six million złoty, which is about ten million dollars. The company plans to invest over two billion złoty (about 500 million dollars), produce up to six million tires a year, and create around 400 jobs, with the factory expected to open in three years.

This move will make Opole a key European production hub for Kumho and is part of the company’s broader strategy to expand globally.

Other Asian investors like Shanghai Pret Composites, a Chinese polymer composites producer, opened its first Polish facility there this year, attracted by Poland’s reliable supply chains, access to EU markets, and cost advantages.

On military updates, on Wednesday, the 17th, Poland and Sweden signed a deal for three A26 Blekinge-class submarines as part of Poland’s Orka program to upgrade its Navy, with the first one expected by twenty thirty.

In the meantime, Sweden will loan an older A17-class submarine by twenty twenty-seven to Poland to replace its old ORP Orzeł. The deal also lets Polish defense companies participate in maintenance, repairs, and production through tech transfer.

The A26 submarines come with diesel-electric and air-independent engines, torpedo launchers, and can launch unmanned underwater vehicles or support special forces missions.

Meanwhile, on Monday, the 15th, Sławomir Cenckiewicz, the head of Poland’s National Security Bureau, said he plans to sue journalists from Gazeta Wyborcza, one of Poland’s most influential daily newspapers, who reported that he didn’t declare some psychotropic and psychoactive medications in a twenty twenty security form, which briefly cost him his security clearance in twenty twenty-four. A court later overturned the clearance revocation, but the Prime Minister’s office has appealed.

Medical groups criticized the media for sharing Cenckiewicz’s health information, saying it’s private and shouldn’t be public because it can break trust in healthcare and stigmatize people with medical conditions.

Tomasz Siemoniak, who coordinates Poland’s special services, said the leak didn’t come from intelligence agencies and that since December twenty twenty-three, no agency has released personnel files or staged media events like past governments did.

On a positive note, on Tuesday, the 16th, the delivery company InPos launched Bielik.ai, the country’s first locally made AI, in its mobile app as part of the Feed the Bielik project. This initiative lets people chat with the AI to help it learn the Polish language and culture while making the system smarter.

The SpeakLeash Foundation at the University of Science and Technology in Kraków, southern Poland, created Bielik.ai, and named it after Poland’s national bird, the white-tailed eagle, to support homegrown digital tech.

Many countries in the world will celebrate Christmas on the 25th of December, and enjoy a public holiday.

In Poland, celebrations start on the evening of the 24th with Wigilia, a traditional meatless Christmas Eve dinner. Families enjoy dishes like barszcz, a beet soup.

They also break and share the opłatek wafer at the table, which symbolizes family, love, forgiveness, and has a spiritual link to the Last Supper when Jesus shared bread with his twelve apostles.

Many people attend midnight Mass, called Pasterka, after dinner.

On Christmas Day, the celebrations continue with festive meals, gift-giving, and visiting relatives.

Finally, on Wednesday the 17th, independent portal Nowy Ład, shared an essay in Polish by Paweł Stańczak discussing how Poles’ relationship with the Catholic Church and conservative political groups is changing.

He points out that in the last ten years, trust in the Church has declined significantly, especially among Gen Z, and fewer people are going to services or thinking about becoming priests.

Right now, there’s a clear gap between Church leaders, conservative elites, and regular voters. Many young conservatives don’t really care what the Church says on social issues and make up their own minds.

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

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