POLAND: Presidential Candidates & more – 28th Nov 2024

Witam from BA! This is the Rorshok Poland Update from the 28th of November twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Poland.

The presidential election race started after political parties announced their candidates this week. On Saturday, the 23rd, Civic Platform, the party of Prime Minister Tusk, announced that Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw, would be its candidate after receiving seventy-four percent of the votes in the party’s election to choose its presidential candidate. Trzaskowski overtook Radosław Sikorski, the foreign minister.

On the other hand, the Law and Justice party, the main opposition party, named Karol Nawrocki as its candidate. Nawrocki was the former head of the Institute of National Remembrance, and this year, Russia placed him on its wanted list after he ordered the removal of Soviet-era monuments in Poland.

When it comes to smaller parties, Poland twenty fifty, a member of the ruling coalition, named Szymon Hołownia, the speaker of the parliament, as its candidate, while the Confederation party named Sławomir Mentzen, the party leader.

On a related note, the results of a recent poll by the Center for Public Opinion Research, or CBOS, published on Friday, the 22nd, showed that the Law and Justice party has gained more support. The CBOS said in the previous poll that Law and Justice was counting on twenty-five percent of the votes, but in this week’s poll, its votes increased to thirty-one percent. The party ranked second after the Civic Platform, which received thirty-two percent of the votes.

The reason behind the increase was Donald Trump's win in the American presidential election. A lot of Poles think that Law and Justice will work with Trump to boost national defense way better than the current ruling coalition, especially when everyone is anxious about a possible war between the West and Russia.

Speaking of defense, two weeks ago, we reported that NATO and the Polish army launched a big missile defense base in Redzikowo, a village in northern Poland, to prevent ballistic missiles from reaching the NATO border in case of a war with Russia or Iran. This base is important for NATO because of its huge defense capacity.

However, on Thursday, the 21st, the base also caught the attention of Russia, and the Russian foreign ministry said that they could target it with advanced weaponry if necessary. It added that the base was designed to target the country, and that it increased the possibilities of a nuclear war.

On the other hand, the Polish foreign ministry said the base was for defensive purposes not offensive ones and that Russia should not be scared of it, unless the nation deliberately fires missiles at NATO countries.

Still on defense, on Monday, the 25th, Szymon Hołownia, the speaker of the parliament, said the government would urgently issue a decision to speed up local ammunition production in the coming days to ensure the country's security in case of a Russian attack.

The government plans to spend one billion dollars on the construction of new ammunition factories. Currently, EU countries are struggling to fill their ammunition stocks because they send a lot of military support to Ukraine. So if a war breaks out, Poland won’t be able to import ammunition from these nations. Moreover, the EU production capacity is very limited because it relies on the US for military defense.

Two protests broke out this week.

On Saturday, the 23rd, Polish farmers staged a protest at the Medyka border point with Ukraine to express their dissatisfaction with the government that didn’t lower the taxes on farms.

The farmers also protested the EU's possible trade agreement with South American countries, which would enable the EU to import more agricultural products from South America, reducing Polish farmers’ revenue. They also protested against the EU’s import of Ukranian agricultural products so that’s why the demonstration took place on the Ukrainian border. If the EU didn’t import agricultural products from Ukraine, Polish farmers could have more business deals with the EU. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Embassy in Poland condemned the protest.

On a positive note for farmers, Tusk, declared that Poland would oppose the EU’s possible trade agreement with South American countries.

Similarly, on Monday, the 24th, animal rights defenders protested the country's fur farms on International Fur-Free Day. The demonstrations started in the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, and later protesters marched to the parliament. They demanded the MPs close all fur farms in the country.

Since we mentioned the parliament, on Thursday, the 21st, it turned down a proposal to fire Izabela Leszczyna, the Health Minister. The main opposition blamed Leszczyna for a progressive decline in the national healthcare system. In previous weeks, we mentioned problems finding appointments and the lack of medical workers. However, Tusk supported Leszczyna and said that she has put in a lot of effort to boost the healthcare system.

In unrelated news, on Thursday, the 21st, the Statistics Poland office announced that men in the country earn on average 120 dollars more than women. In 354 out of 380 districts in Poland, men have higher wages than women. The biggest gaps are in the biggest cities, including Warsaw, Kraków, and Poznań, while in rural areas the gap is smaller.

When it comes to different sectors, women earned more than men in construction, administrative, and support service work. Yet, the gap between earnings is about to change starting from twenty twenty-six because Poland needs to adopt the EU directive on pay equality. The directive will require employers to disclose salary information, perform pay gap analyses, and ensure non-discrimination in compensation policies.

On Monday, the 25th, the Warsaw-based non-governmental Conscious Human Institute demanded the government ban or partly restrict beer advertisements on television. The Institute revealed that the channels aired nearly 3,000 hours of beer advertisements alone in twenty twenty-two, which is equivalent to broadcasting nonstop for four months. The Institute added that these long hours of advertisements encourage minors to drink beer at a young age and also increase the current consumption of beer.

Talking of bans, Poland disagrees with the EU’s plan to ban combustion cars from traffic in twenty thirty-five to reduce carbon emissions. Poland will take over the EU Council presidency in January, and the country is prepared to use its leadership role to postpone the twenty thirty-five deadline. Poland's car industry won't meet this deadline because it won’t be able to make affordable electric cars before twenty thirty-five. it would be too costly for the automotive industry to switch and produce electric cars. Also, the citizens of lower income in EU countries such as Poland could face economic hardships in switching to electric cars since they are more expensive.

On a positive note, on Wednesday, the 27th, Polish researchers from the West Pomeranian University of Technology and the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin announced that they found a new breakthrough drug that treats cancer better than traditional chemotherapy. When destroying cancer cells, traditional chemotherapy also does so to healthy cells around the cancer, which reduces the effectiveness of defeating cancer. Researchers said that the new substance identifies the cancer cell with its special protein shell, avoiding healthy cells. They conducted animal tests, which yielded good results. Now, experiments will be conducted on humans.

Closing this edition, on Tuesday, the 26th, Polish law enforcement announced that they detained a Polish man who was illegally trafficking and selling automatic guns and pistols to criminal organizations across Europe. After detaining a man who was previously working as a licensed firearms dealer, police found dozens of illegal weapons on his premises. The Polish law enforcement successfully carried out the operation along with authorities from Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, and Sweden.

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

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