POLAND: The Pension Bill & more – 6th Nov 2025

Witam from BA! This is the Rorshok Poland Update from the 6th of November twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Poland.

Let’s kick off with updates on the energy industry. On Friday, the 31st of October Poland’s National Center for Nuclear Research or NCBJ teamed up with US nuclear power company Westinghouse to strengthen the country’s nuclear energy program.

They’ll work together on research, training, and other nuclear projects. Miłosz Motyka, the Energy Minister, said it’s an investment for the future and that Poland wants to become a European leader in nuclear technologies. Jakub Kupecki, the NCBJ Director, said that combining local research with Westinghouse’s global experience will speed up Poland’s nuclear plans.

The partnership will focus on advanced reactors, including small modular reactors, as well as safety, operations, and new testing facilities. The NCBJ runs Maria, Poland’s only research reactor, mainly used for medical isotopes.

Speaking of cooperation, on Wednesday the 5th, President Karol Nawrocki went to Bratislava to meet Peter Pellegrini, Slovakia’s President. They talked about politics, the economy, and big infrastructure projects.

Pellegrini said that Slovakia will finish its part of the Via Carpathia route, a north–south highway that will connect Central and Eastern Europe, in the next few years. Nawrocki mentioned that US gas could soon come to Poland first, and then Poland would send it on to Slovakia.

Both presidents said they’re against the EU’s migrant plan to move 30,000 asylum-seekers around Europe each year and want Hungary and the Czech Republic to join them in opposing it at the next Visegrad Group meeting.

Nawrocki said he wants the Visegrad Group, which drifted apart after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, to work closely together again.

Switching gears to new laws. On Monday, the 3rd, Karol Nawrocki signed the Dignified Pension bill, which will raise the minimum pension from 1,900 złoty, about 470 dollars, to 2,030 złoty, around 500 dollars, next year. It’s one of the key promises he made during his presidential campaign.

Nawrocki signed the bill during a meeting with seniors in Sochaczew, in central Poland, and now the proposal is heading to the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, for approval. He said he’s confident the bill will pass and added that Poland deserves a minimum pension of at least 2,000 złoty, in today’s world.

Nawrocki also said that the bill includes both percentages and fixed increases to make sure pensions grow along with prices and the real cost of living. He added that the government should be fair and support both business and diplomacy, and seniors and people with disabilities.

In more law updates, on Thursday, the 30th, Marta Cienkowska, the Culture Minister, introduced a new law to reform public media after years of political influence under the Law and Justice Party, the former ruling party. The goal is to make public media more independent, professional, and trustworthy.

The law ends the TV and radio license fee that consumers had to pay, which funded public media. The new system will see the state budget funding public media with 2.5 billion złoty, around 500 million dollars, adjusted for inflation. Oversight will shift from the National Media Council to the National Broadcasting Council.

Anyone running public media will need real experience in media or culture and no political ties for several years. Appointments will go through public hearings with NGOs, labor organizations that represent media workers, and employers’ organizations. Public media boards will have single-person management for five-year terms, while National Broadcasting Council members serve six-year terms with partial rotation every two years.

The following day, Friday, the 31st, hackers hit SuperGrosz, Poland’s online loan service, affecting around 10,000 users. In the first cyberattack, someone gained remote access to part of SuperGrosz’s customer database using a custom program.

Following that, hackers hit the travel agency Itaka and the BLIK payment system, stealing names, emails, PESEL numbers, addresses, income information, bank details, and ID data.

Krzysztof Gawkowski, the Deputy Prime Minister, said hackers are targeting Poland more than other EU countries because its online services are growing, where there’s a lot of valuable personal and financial data, and security isn’t always very strong.

He asked affected users to monitor their data, change passwords, enable two-factor authentication, and lock their PESEL in the mObywatel app, Poland’s official app for managing personal data.

Speaking of cyberattacks, on Thursday, the 30th, hackers hit Polish ice cream chain Grycan’s online store. The company says they’ve fixed the problem and the store is safe again.

The hackers may have leaked customers’ names, emails, addresses, billing info, and encrypted passwords, but no financial data like card numbers or bank accounts got out. Only customers with online accounts were affected, while guests who checked out without an account stayed safe.

Grycan reached out to affected customers, told them what they should do, and reported the attack to the Polish Data Protection Authority.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the 4th, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, Polish Deputy PM and Defense Minister, said it was a dangerous situation for Poland that Grzegorz Braun, an ultra-conservative Member of the European Parliament, received a Belarusian Peace and Human Rights award. The award comes from a propaganda group named after Emil Czeczko, a Polish soldier who deserted the army and sought asylum in Belarus.

Kosiniak-Kamysz said he worries that Belarus honored Braun and that Czeczko betrayed Poland, and he urged officials to reject the award quickly, warning that ignoring it would clearly go against patriotism.

He also added that giving an award to someone connected to a foreign regime that’s against Poland goes against the country’s values.

Next up, on Monday, the 3rd, a new campaign called Before You Take Off, Check Where You Can Fly a Drone kicked off in Warsaw to prevent illegal drone use.

The month-long campaign reminds people that safe flying starts with knowing the rules. The Civil Aviation Authority or ULC launched the project to help more people understand where they can and can’t fly their drones.

The project includes posts, workshops, and short videos for both beginners and experienced flyers.

The ULC hopes the campaign will cut down on violations and make Poland’s skies safer.

Let’s get back to the energy sector for a second. On Tuesday the 4th, more than 10,000 people protested in Katowice, southern Poland, over possible job cuts in mining, steel, railway, and car factories.

Union leaders who organized the protest said that Poland’s shift toward green energy and new industries could wipe out thousands of jobs in Silesia, one of the country’s main industrial regions in the south.

Protesters from across the city gathered outside the regional government office, demanding stronger protection for workers.

Remember last week we talked about All Saints’ Day, which took place on Saturday, the 1st? That weekend, people across Poland participated in fundraising events to help restore the country’s oldest cemeteries.

Thousands visited the graves of loved ones, while actors, musicians, and community leaders collected donations to repair monuments.

At Warsaw’s Powązki Cemetery, one of Poland’s most famous burial sites, volunteers held the annual collection for the 51st time. In previous collections, they raised funds that have already restored over 1,700 old gravestones.

Similar charity events took place in some other cities, including Kraków, in the south, and Łódź, in central Poland, often combined with concerts and local clean-up events.

And to close this edition, on Wednesday, the 5th, journalist Olena Babakova published an essay in the Polish progressive online magazine Political Criticism about the rise in Polish-Ukrainian marriages and what these numbers really say about relations between the two nations.

She wrote that the number of Polish-Ukrainian marriages is much smaller compared to the number of Ukrainians living in Poland, so it doesn’t show any major change in relations.

She also noted that most mixed marriages are between Polish men and Ukrainian women, which doesn’t confirm those stereotypes that Ukrainian women marry Polish men for a passport or that Polish men intentionally look for traditional wives from the East.

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

We have some new t-shirts coming out soon, just in time for Christmas! Stay tuned!

Do zobaczenia!