POLAND: Foreign Policy & more – 30th Apr 2024

Witam from BA! This is the Rorshok Poland Update from the 30th of April twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Poland.

Let’s start the show with foreign affairs. On Thursday, the 25th, in a parliamentary session, Radosław Sikorski, the foreign minister, said that the government's diplomacy aims to ensure Poland’s survival and development amid rising threats, such as the Russian expansion and spy attacks. He criticized the foreign policy of the previous government, headed by the Law and Justice party, and said they made crucial mistakes, like deteriorating relations with the EU, Germany, and even Ukraine. Moreover, he said that the former government established an ideological alliance with pro-Putin populist regimes such as Hungary.

President Andrzej Duda strongly disagreed with Sikorski’s remarks and said that the previous government did not cooperate with pro-Putin regimes. He said it was Sikorski the one who collaborated with the Putin regime, as he supported Germany’s attempt to build the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with Russian cooperation in twenty fifteen.

In the same speech, Sikorski also stated that Russian authorities are spreading propaganda about Poland’s possible annexation of Ukraine’s Lviv city. He said these statements were false and that this was another attempt to deteriorate Polish-Ukrainian relations.

Speaking of Ukraine, last week, the Ukrainian government announced that it would cancel consular services to military-age Ukrainian men living abroad to gather soldiers in the country. This way, Ukrainian men will have to return to the country before their passports expire because no country, including Poland, accepts someone with an expired passport. On Thursday, the 25th, Władysław Kosiniak, the Polish defense minister, stated that Poland supports Ukraine’s efforts to gather more soldiers to defend the country. Reporters asked him whether Poland would cancel the residence permits of military-age Ukrainian men, and he said that it might do so.

Nowadays, the Polish army is as active as the Ukrainian army because of rising threats. A Polish Cyber Army team in cooperation with its Finnish counterparts participated in NATO’s largest cyber defense exercise. The NATO Cooperative Cyber ​​Defense Center of Excellence simulated a cyber-war army fare situation in which a fictitious enemy attacked NATO’s banking systems, power plants, satellite communications, 5G networks, cloud solutions, and air defense systems. The aim of the exercise was to repel those attacks as soon as possible.

Moving on to immigaration, on Saturday, the 27th, authorities stated that Poland’s border guard’s reintegration program has helped 104 foreign nationals return to their home countries so far. The program gives money and information services to immigrants who want to return to their countries. It helps them find work, get healthcare, and connect with someone in their country of origin. Migrants who have returned to their countries are mostly from India, Iraq, Georgia, and Turkey. The Border Guard said there are two reasons why immigrants want to return to their homeland. First, they could not obtain a residence permit in Poland or the EU, or they could not adapt to daily life in the country.

Contrary to immigrants, Polish minorities continue to gain rights. On Friday, the 26th, the parliament recognized Silesian as one of the official languages of Poland with the support of ruling coalition parties. There has been an ongoing debate about whether Silesian is a dialect of Polish or a different language within Poland. Nationalistic parties have long rejected eight different proposals to recognize Silesian as a language. Now people can run private courses to teach Silesian. The language belongs to the Upper Silesia region of Poland, in the Southern part of the country, which shares a border with Chechia and Slovakia, and half a million people speak it.

On Wednesday, the 24th, Mateusz Morawiecki, the former prime minister and an MP for the main opposition, the Law and Justice party, said that there will be big increases in gas, electricity, and water prices in the coming months. He called on the ruling coalition to back his party’s plan to maintain the prices for gas and water and expand the practice of freezing electricity prices to cover low-scale businesses as well. He also criticized the government for its lack of support for individuals with low income. On the other hand, the Ministry of Infrastructure said that Morawiecki’s comments were false and that the government does not expect price increases.

Back in February, the government fired Daniel Obajtek, the former CEO of Orlen, a state-owned energy giant, because he reduced oil prices below market value to help Law and Justice win last year’s parliamentary election. On Monday, the 29th, Donald Tusk, the prime minister, announced that this move led to a half-billion-dollar loss for the company. He also said Obajtek appointed a person who had a connection with Hezbollah as the head of the company’s branch in Switzerland, even though the security officers informed him about the appointee’s terrorist ties. Tusk said that the Prosecutor General will launch a comprehensive investigation into the case.

Up next, on Thursday, the 25th, a poll by United Surveys showed that sixty-six percent of the participants are not against people having same-sex relationships. Fifty percent also support same-sex marriages as an official status. However, sixty-three percent expressed that they are against adoption rights for gay couples. Participants who defended same-sex relationships mainly stated that they are supporters of liberal parties such as Civic Platform, while supporters of nationalistic parties, like Law and Justice, strictly oppose same-sex relationships.

On Wednesday, the 24th, Poland's first national conference on forests took place with the participation of several non-governmental organizations and the Minister of Climate and Environment. The meeting focused on debates to preserve the country’s natural reserves, especially old woodlands, which have been cut to make a profit during the previous government’s rule. Woodchoppers also attended the conference amid the rising activism of nature defenders, as their profit may decrease if the government further restricts logging. The Ministry of Climate and Environment said they made important decisions at the conference, such as the permanent exclusion of 20% of national forests from logging. Yet, the decisions taken in the meeting have the status of recommendations to the government since the conference does not have the power to make official decisions.

In unrelated news, on Friday, the 26th, a fifty-four-year-old Polish woman alarmed security when she joked about having a bomb in her luggage at Warsaw Chopin Airport. Security personnel in charge of checking luggage asked her if she carried something dangerous, and she replied that she had a bomb and drugs in her luggage. The airport security detained her and canceled her planned trip to Egypt. Not only did she lose her vacation but she also received a 125-dollar fine for joking.

And to wrap up this edition, Poland awaits three national holiday days from the 1st to the 3rd of May. The first day marks Labor Day and Poland's joining the EU, the second will mark National Flag Day; and the 3rd of May will celebrate the anniversary of adopting the Constitution of seventeen ninety-one, the oldest in Europe, with a free concert co-organized by Polish and South Korean groups in Warsaw. The concert will include songs from famous Polish singers such as Marcin Maciejczak, and from Ukrainian artists like Zlata Ognevich to show solidarity with Ukraine. Also, K-pop dance routines and traditional Korean dances will accompany the concert program. To know more about the concert, follow the link in the show notes!

And that’s it for this week! Thanks your joining us!

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