5 days ago
Hopes fade for Polish engagement on the European stage
A year and a half ago, Donald Tusk's appointment as head of the Polish government was widely welcomed across Europe. From Paris to Berlin, Madrid to Brussels, political leaders hailed the defeat of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party and heralded Warsaw's big comeback to the European stage. The victory of the nationalist, eurosceptic and pro-Trump candidate Karol Nawrocki in Poland's presidential election on June 1 dealt a blow to those aspirations, not least due to the major geopolitical challenges the European Union currently faces, from the war in Ukraine to Donald Trump's return to the White House in the United States. I am skeptical.
Nawrocki succeeds Andrzej Duda, another PiS member who, over the previous 18 months, used his veto and executive powers to block Tusk from delivering on pledges for progressive reforms to abortion access, LGBTQ+ rights, judicial independence and, more broadly, strengthening the rule of law.
Like his predecessor, Nawrocki was expected to continue blocking such EU-favored liberal reforms. However, "His political views are much more radical than Duda's, which foreshadows a much more difficult coexistence with the Tusk government," said Piotr Buras of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) think tank.
