POLAND: Runoff Results & more – 5th June 2025

Witam from BA! This is the Rorshok Poland Update from the 5th of June twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Poland.

Let’s kick off with internal affairs. On Sunday, the 1st, the presidential runoff took place, and Karol Nawrocki, the conservative candidate from the Law and Justice Party, won with 50.9 percent of the vote, beating Rafał Trzaskowski, Warsaw’s mayor and candidate from Civic Platform, who got just a bit over forty-nine percent. Voter turnout was pretty high, over seventy-one percent.

Nawrocki’s all about traditional values and is skeptical of the EU, while Trzaskowski, part of the current pro-EU government, wants to strengthen ties with Europe and push for democratic reforms.

Nawrocki mainly got support from rural, conservative voters. Trzaskowski, on the other hand, was favored by city dwellers, liberals, and voters with higher education who backed closer EU ties. A lot of young people who supported Trzaskowski felt frustrated about the results and some even considered leaving the country.

The day after his political ally, Trzaskowski, lost the presidential race, PM Donald Tusk announced a vote of confidence in his government on the 11th of June. He acknowledged that things have changed politically but made it clear that his government is ready to do its duties and continue governing.

He called the vote a fresh start and a way to check how the government and its ministries are doing after a year and a half in charge, saying that a vote of confidence allows lawmakers to express whether they still support the government.

Tusk’s pro-EU plans are on the line since the president can veto laws. Nawrocki will officially take over on the 6th of August, replacing the outgoing president, Andrzej Duda.

Switching gears to new policies, on Sunday, the 1st, Poland introduced stricter rules for foreigners seeking to work, study, or get Polish visas.

Students now need to prove they are proficient in the language of their studies, Polish or English, and universities should verify their qualifications and report if they don’t show up to classes.

Poland also limited foreign students to no more than fifty percent of a university’s total enrollment and gave local offices more control over which jobs foreigners can get. Moreover, companies caught hiring illegally will face higher fines.

PM Tusk said these changes aim to stop illegal migration and avoid the potential misuse of the system.

In more new policies, on Tuesday, the 3rd, Radosław Sikorski, the Foreign Minister, announced a new support plan for Poles living or traveling abroad.

From now on, if a Polish citizen loses their passport or needs help in a country without a Polish consulate, they can turn to any EU embassy for assistance. The embassy will give them emergency travel documents so they can get back home or keep traveling.

Before this, getting help in places without a Polish office was much harder, and people often had to turn to Polish embassies in neighboring countries.

Since we mentioned Sikorski, on Wednesday, the 4th, he met with his German counterpart, Johann Wadephul, in Berlin.

Poland and Germany agreed they share the duty to support Ukraine and protect NATO’s eastern flank. Sikorski urged Europe to do more for its own security as US aid may slow and called for more weapons to Ukraine.

They discussed Germany’s border checks to fight illegal migration, with Sikorski asking for smooth procedures and inviting German officials to visit Poland’s Belarus border. Speaking about WWII, Sikorski repeated Poland’s demand for Nazi crime compensation, and Wadephul said Germany won’t forget the victims and backed a Berlin memorial.

After their meeting, the two ministers brought back the Polish-German Forum, which had been on pause since twenty eighteen because of political disagreements between the two countries, such as fights over WWII reparations.

Meanwhile, on Monday, the 2nd, leaders from NATO’s eastern allies, the Bucharest Nine, plus the Baltic and Nordic countries, got together in Vilnius, Lithuania, to get ready for the big NATO summit in June.

President Duda pushed for raising NATO’s defense spending from two to three percent of the countries’ GDP to better stand up to Russia and make sure that the US isn’t carrying most of the cost of defending NATO countries alone. They talked about strengthening NATO’s eastern border, speeding up the sending of weapons to Ukraine, and funding defense industries.

Everyone agreed Ukraine should join NATO and called for exerting more pressure on Russia, such as by imposing new sanctions.

Soon after, Duda met with Lithuanian leaders, visited the local Polish community, and paid respects at important historic spots connected to Poland and WWII.

In news about fossil fuel-induced weather events, on Monday, the 2nd, intense thunderstorms and heavy rain hit southern Poland and caused flash floods and a lot of emergency calls. The city of Racibórz was one of the worst-hit spots, where streets quickly turned into rushing water and traffic came to a standstill for a while.

Firefighters dealt with almost four hundred storm-related calls, mostly in Silesia, Kraków, and Podkarpacie. According to weather experts, the storms moved from the west toward the northeast, bringing gusts of wind and rainfall of around twenty millimeters.

On an unrelated note, on Monday, the 2nd, the Foreign Ministry announced that Michał Balcerzak, a Polish Professor at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, northern Poland, got re-elected as the Chairperson to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination or CERD, for the twenty twenty-six–twenty thirty term.

CERD is a UN group made up of eighteen independent experts who keep an eye on UN countries’ adherence to international human rights rules.

Balcerzak was voted in during a UN meeting in New York. Having him on the committee again is a big plus for Poland’s role in fighting racism and protecting human rights worldwide.

The country has been pushing forward in space. On Wednesday, the 4th, the Polish development and technology ministry said that Polish companies and research institutes have taken part in nearly 700 space projects worth over 320 million dollars since Poland joined the European Space Agency in twenty twelve, highlighting the country’s increased investment and growing role in space exploration.

One big deal coming up is the 65 million dollar mission launching on the 10th of June to the International Space Station with Polish astronaut Sławosz Uznański. It’ll test Polish-made gear and run fun experiments for schools.

Other projects include 85 million dollars for the CAMILA satellite group and money for tech upgrades and trainee programs. Poland’s bigger budget now puts it on the same level as countries like Belgium and Spain in the European Space Agency.

In cultural updates, on Tuesday, the 3rd, during the Content Warsaw conference, Monty Sarhan, the CEO of SkyShowtime, a European subscription-based streaming service, along with Edyta Pytlewska-Mele, who is in charge of local productions, announced a documentary about Grzegorz Krychowiak, one of Poland’s most recognized footballers.

Krychowiak played 100 games for the national team and helped Poland reach the Euro twenty sixteen quarterfinals. The film, titled Krychowiak: One Step from the Top, will also show his personal side, including his life with his wife, as well as his passion for fashion and travel.

It’s the first original documentary from SkyShowtime in Poland, promising to blend sports, lifestyle, and entertainment.

Let’s wrap up this episode with more entertainment news, as on Tuesday the 3rd, Billie Eilish, the American pop singer, surprised fans in Kraków, in southern Poland, by lending her voice to public transport announcements ahead of her two sold-out concerts at Kraków's Tauron Arena.

The idea was to promote her new album and encourage her fans to use public transport to help the environment. People using the trams loved hearing her voice and shared their excitement all over social media.

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

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Do zobaczenia!