POLAND: The President’s Courts Proposal & more – 26th Feb 2026

Witam from BA! This is the Rorshok Poland Update from the 26th of February twenty twenty-six. A quick summary of what's going down in Poland.

Let’s start off with internal affairs. On Friday, the 20th, Włodzimierz Czarzasty, the parliamentary Speaker, said he will ask the Venice Commission to examine President Karol Nawrocki’s new proposal on the courts. He believes the plan could limit judges’ independence and disturb the balance of power in the state.

President Nawrocki earlier vetoed two government bills that would have given parliament the power to appoint judges to the National Council of the Judiciary because he wants judges themselves to choose their representatives and be free of any political influence.

Switching gears to security. On Friday, the 20th, Poland officially left the Ottawa Convention, the treaty that bans making, storing, or using anti-personnel mines. The Sejm, the lower house of parliament, passed the law allowing this back in June twenty twenty-five. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that Poland will be able to mine its eastern border in just forty-eight hours.

Paweł Zalewski, the Deputy Defence Minister, said mines are an important part of defence along the borders with Russia and Belarus. He added that Poland isn’t looking for a fight but wants to have every tool ready to discourage Russia from attacking. Poland also plans to restart producing both anti-personnel and anti-tank mines.

Human rights groups criticized the move, saying that mines can be dangerous to civilians long after wars end.

Also on Friday, the 20th, Poland, the UK, France, Germany, and Italy held a meeting in Kraków, southern Poland, to discuss drone strike capabilities and plan how to make and share drone weapons. Ukraine’s defence chief joined online, while top EU and NATO officials attended in person.

Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, the Defence Minister, said that with modern conflicts, Europe needs to react fast and be strong enough to stop anyone from thinking about attacking EU countries.

The countries’ representatives also said they’ll keep supporting Ukraine, stick to NATO defence goals, and aim to spend five percent of their GDP on defence. They also talked about deterrence, hybrid threats, and working together on European defence.

Still on foreign affairs, on Monday, the 23rd, Włodzimierz Czarzasty went to Kyiv and met with Volodymyr Zełenskyy, the Ukrainian President.

They talked about Poland’s support for Ukraine’s accession to the EU. Czarzasty said this move could open new opportunities for Polish businesses, adding that Poland already serves as a hub for sending Western aid to Ukraine and could also become a center for business and tech collaboration.

He spoke with Rusłan Stefanczuk, the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, and also met with Kyryło Budanow, the head of Zełenskyy’s office. His two-day visit coincides with the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the 25th, the Konfederacja party announced that it wants to push a no-confidence vote against Paulina Hennig-Kloska, the Minister of Climate and Environment.

Krzysztof Bosak, the leader of the party, criticized her for blindly following EU climate rules, pausing and restarting the deposit return system for adjustments, which caused delays and confusion for people. He said that the Clean Air program was run so poorly that it led to payment delays and a loss of public trust.

Grzegorz Płaczek, a Konfederacja MP, also blamed the ministry for problems in state forests, including higher timber prices and shortages after the January twenty twenty-four logging freeze.

On the other hand, Elżbieta Burkiewicz, an MP from the Centrum party, defended Hennig-Kloska, saying she is doing a good job with green energy, waste management, energy security, and forests.

In business news, on Monday, the 23rd, international delivery company DPD said it’s reviewing an eleven million złoty (three million dollar) fine from Poland’s data protection office for mishandling the personal data of couriers and will decide whether to pay, appeal, or change its data practices.

Among other things, the office said DPD used outside couriers without proper data agreements. DPD explained that the agreements weren’t needed because the couriers only delivered packages. Still, it will review everything but insists that its systems keep personal data safe.

On Monday, the 23rd, Jan Grabiec, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office, said that after the Russian government banned coal exports to the EU in twenty twenty-two, prices skyrocketed, creating opportunities for shady deals that still affect the country.

He added that the government imported coal from other countries instead of using Polish coal, and PKP Cargo, a major Polish rail freight company, lost more than one billion złoty, about 280 million  dollars, when it canceled contracts.

Marcin Kierwiński, the head of the Ministry of Interior, said that under the Law and Justice Party government, companies bought most of the twenty twenty-two coal from Kazakhstan, Colombia, and Australia, and nearly forty percent of it did not meet quality standards, triggering ongoing investigations into possible wrongdoing.

Next up, on Tuesday, the 24th, Polish Airports signed a loan of three billion złoty (about 900 million  dollars) with PKO BP, Pekao, and the National Economy Bank to upgrade Warsaw’s Chopin Airport and invest in the new Port Polska project, a plan to build a major new airport near Baranów, west of Warsaw.

Most of the money will go toward expanding the Chopin Airport, including building a bigger baggage sorting area and seven new jet bridges, so the airport can handle thirty million passengers by twenty twenty-nine and prepare to transfer traffic to the new Baranów airport in twenty thirty-two.

Also on Tuesday, the 24th, Jacek Czerniak, the Deputy Agriculture Minister, announced that the government approved a new law to create a National Register for Tagged Dogs and Cats. The law requires owners to microchip all dogs and cats in shelters and those being sold. For other cats, microchipping is optional.

The law will help to reduce stray animals and lower shelter costs. The Agricultural Restructuring and Modernization Agency will run the register and store basic information about each pet and its owner or shelter, including a unique ID, microchip number, breed, color, sex, birth date, and contact details. Owners can update their information, their pet’s name, or if the animal dies or goes missing.

Microchipping and registration will cost up to fifty złoty, about fourteen dollars, for each pet and vets will handle it. The register will delete records five years after a pet dies or thirty years after its birth or registration if the death date isn’t known.

On Tuesday, the 24th, Doctor in economics Bartłomiej Biga wrote for the online platform Klub Jagielloński that the Polish government’s proposed digital tax, which would make big foreign tech companies pay three percent of their revenue from services in Poland, makes sense in theory but would be very difficult to implement.

He explained that the tax would target large tech companies’ revenues from ads, digital platforms, and user data in Poland, while smaller services would be exempt.

Biga added that big tech firms are extremely powerful and could respond by limiting services in Poland, and that the US government would strongly oppose any move that harms American companies.

Biga said the tax would only work if the whole EU acted together, rather than Poland alone.

To read the full piece in Polish, check out the link in the show notes.

On an unrelated note, on Sunday, the 22nd, President Nawrocki became the honorary protector of Polish scouts, both in Poland and abroad, on World Thinking Day. He said Polish scouting has always been tied to the country’s history and fight for independence, from its start in nineteen ten through WWII.

He thanked scouts for remembering heroes, promised to actively support the movement, and announced that Poland will host its first World Scout Jamboree in twenty twenty-seven.

To wrap up the last episode of the Rorshok Poland Update, on Tuesday, the 24th, the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management issued flood alerts in fourteen regions because melting snow is making rivers rise.

Only Wielkopolskie and Lubuskie voivodeships in western Poland are safe.

Authorities asked people in the affected areas to be careful and watch the rivers and streams for rising water.

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

This is our last goodbye. We are very sad that this project has to come to an end. Thank you so much for your support for our experiment. We put so much effort into making these updates, so we hope you have connected with them and with us. We are really grateful to each one of you who has stuck with us until the end.

Again, thank you so much for being on the other side.

You can still contact us at info@rorshok.com. Who knows, we might get the Poland update running again someday.

Do zobaczenia!