POLAND: Refugees & more – 16th Apr 2024

Witam from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Poland Update from the 16th of April twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what's going down in Poland.

Last year, the EU forced member countries to accept a certain number of refugees to share the burden of increased immigration in the continent, and it charged countries that did not comply with the regulation with a daily fine. The previous Law and Justice government refused to participate in the regulation and said that the administration of Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister, would do the opposite and fill the country with a lot of illegal immigrants.

However, on Friday, the 12th, Tusk stated that Poland would not accept any EU relocation mechanism since the country already hosts one million Ukrainian refugees.

Speaking of the PM, on Saturday the 13th, during his meeting with his Greek counterpart in Warsaw, he asked the EU to send frozen Russian assets in European banks to Ukraine. Recall that the EU has frozen nearly 350 billion dollars of Russian money. Poland's taking over the presidency of the European Council in twenty twenty-five may accelerate this process. Both leaders also agreed that the EU should create an exclusive European army in addition to NATO forces against the Russian threat.

In the meeting, Tusk also announced that Poland will send its firefighters to Greece this summer to help out. In recent years, the country has suffered from huge wildfires every summer.

More on foreign policies. On Sunday, the 14th, Radosław Sikorski, the foreign minister, strongly condemned Iran's recent attack on Israel. He also congratulated Israel and praised its air defense system, which shut down most of the drones and missiles. Sikorski said that Ukraine also needs this kind of air defense system and urged Ukrainian allies to send further air defense systems to the country amid the rising air attacks by Russia. In addition, Poland warned its citizens not to travel to the Middle East until the war ended.

Back to Poland, where birth rates are decreasing drastically, and experts anticipate demographic issues in the future, as there will be very few young citizens to sustain the economy. To address the issue, on Tuesday, the 9th, the government announced another incentive to stimulate people to have more children. Parents will receive a 400-dollar monthly payment for each child until the kids turn three. The regulation will come into effect on the 1st of October — unless the president vetoes it.

On a related note, if there is a never-ending debate in Poland, it is about abortion. On Saturday, the 13th, the parliament received two different proposals from two political parties. The Left and the Civic Platform demand a total legalization of abortion up to twelve weeks of pregnancy. On the other hand, the Third Way Alliance, consisting of the Polish People’s Party and Poland twenty fifty parties, wants to return to the abortion compromise policy when abortion was legal in cases where the fetus shows signs of serious disability, or when there's a threat to the fetuses’ lives or their mothers'. They also want abortion to be legal in rape cases. The main opposition, the Law and Justice party supported the Alliance’s initiative. If their initiative is not approved, The Third Way has proposed a referendum to ask people about how they feel about abortion. The Left Party rejects this measure because they think a referendum will include all people over eighteen years old, men and elderly in particular, to decide on an issue that doesn’t affect them.

On the flip side, on Monday, the 14th, in Warsaw, a group called Pro-Life activists staged a rally to protest the parliament's decision to start talks on relaxing abortion laws. The rally also took place on the day when Poland became a Christian country in 966. The group said they will not show tolerance until the rights of each conceived child are guaranteed.

After the EU-friendly ruling coalition won the majority in parliament, the government decided to introduce EU-directed initiatives. On Thursday, the 11th, the executive announced that the country will launch a deposit refund system next year, aligning with the EU's push for a circular economy and reduced waste production to prevent climate change. According to the scheme, customers will pay a deposit for plastic and glass products, but then they will be able to get that money as a refund if they deliver plastic or glass to recycling machines that will be available outside the stores. With this new measure, the government thinks that people will not throw plastic and glass in the garbage.

In some economic news, on Monday, the 15th, the Statistics Poland Agency published data showing that the yearly inflation hit rock bottom with only two percent from March twenty twenty-three to March twenty twenty-four.

The price of transportation decreased by three percent. However, education and school fees increased the most, by nine percent. Food and non-alcoholic beverages only increased by 0.5 percent.

Since we mentioned education… On Tuesday, the 16th, Władysław Kosiniak, the defense minister, announced that the ministry is preparing voluntary military training camps for high school graduates. The training will take place during the summer school holidays, and attendees will receive payment for their participation. He urged the youth to attend the training before they start their work lives or proceed with higher education to be helpful members of the nation. He said the training will prepare students not only for war scenarios but also for natural disasters —this way, they’ll know how to act and rescue other people in dangerous situations.

On Wednesday, the 10th, the Law and Justice party submitted a request to parliament to fire Marcin Kierwiński, the interior minister. The party says his actions were against the law because Kierwiński sent police who used excessive force to calm down farmers during their protest across the country. However, the ruling coalition, which has a majority in parliament, dismissed the request.

On cultural updates… On Saturday, the 12th, Agnieszka Holland, a famous Polish director, announced the shooting of her new movie about Franz Kafka, a famous Czech and Austrian writer. The filming started in the Czech capital, Prague, where the writer passed away. Director Holland became a center of attention internationally in twenty twenty-three when she released her movie The Green Border about the sufferings of immigrants trying to escape to Poland from Belarus. The ruling Law and Justice Party criticized the movie at the time, saying that the director tried to justify illegal immigration and show Polish border guards as evil.

On Friday, the 12th, President Andrzej Duda paid tribute to the people who died in the Katyn massacre, when the Soviet Union's secret police killed 22,000 Poles in nineteen forty. The commemoration ceremony took place in the Katyn Museum in Warsaw Citadel because this is where Nazi Germans discovered mass graves belonging to the massacre during World War II. The Soviets denied the responsibility and blamed Nazi Germany until nineteen ninety, when Polish authorities concluded that the Soviet Union was responsible. However, modern Russia refuses to call the mass murder a war crime.

And to close this edition, on Sunday the 7th, Poland had local elections, and after that, one couple thought politicians would no longer need election banners, so they collected them to use on their farm as a shield for cultivating plants. However, police detained the fifty-year-old married couple in Sokołów for theft, and now they are facing up to five years in prison because they seized over 100 election banners. Police warned citizens that it is forbidden to collect banners without the consent of politicians.

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

Do you know that besides the Polabd Update, we also do others? Our latest ones are the Arctic Update, about the area north of the Arctic Circle, the Ocean Update, about the 70% of the world covered in salt water, and the Multilateral update about all the world's major multilateral institutions. The other ones are all country updates, we have a selection of countries from Africa, Asia, South America, and Europe. Check roroshok.com/updates to see the full list. Find the link in the show notes as well.

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