Latest news with #PiS
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
New Polish President Nawrocki invited to White House in September
Poland's new right-wing President Karol Nawrocki has received an invitation to meet US President Donald Trump during a working visit to the White House next month, Nawrocki's office announced on Saturday. The invitation was issued along with Trump's message of congratulation on the occasion of Nawrocki's inauguration on Wednesday, it said. Nawrocki, a right-wing conservative and political opponent of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, is an outspoken Trump admirer. The 42-year-old historian is officially independent but is seen as close to the nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS). He emerged victorious in the second round of the presidential election at the beginning of June. Trump received Nawrocki, a novice on the world stage, in May during the Polish election campaign, with the White House publishing a photo showing the two men in the Oval Office making a thumbs-up sign. The visit and photo were seen as boosting Nawrocki's chances.
Telegraph
a day ago
- Business
- Telegraph
EU Covid cash ‘funded yachts, luxury cars and swingers club'
The European Union's post-Covid recovery funds were used to fund yachts, luxury cars and a swingers' club, a report shows. The programme was set up to revive hotels, restaurants and cultural venues that suffered during the pandemic. But in Poland, where the grants totalled around £244m, the beneficiaries included some dubious recipients, including a pizzeria that added tanning beds, and a sex club in the south of the country, Politico reported. The spending was revealed in an interactive online map of grant recipients, released as part of a wider transparency drive by the coalition government led by Donald Tusk, the former president of the European Council. The revelation has been seized upon by Mr Tusk's political opponents in the hard-right Law and Justice (PiS) party, who have sought to position it as a major scandal. 'One of the biggest scandals since 1989,' said Tobiasz Bocheński, a PiS MEP. The party has vowed to carry out parliamentary inspections of the grants and trace every 'link, dependency and decision-making chain'. One restaurant owner in Łódź, central Poland, defended using the money to buy two yachts, claiming it helped him diversify his business in the event of further lockdown restrictions. 'We didn't get this money for vacations,' Grzegorz Urbaniak told claiming that the boats could be used as tourist rentals when restaurants were closed. Meanwhile, the owner of a business registered at the same address as a swingers'club said the money he received paid for metalworking machinery, not sex work. EU cash frozen under previous government The hospitality industry grants were part of £52bn Poland had been due from the EU's National Recovery Plan, which was frozen during PiS's time in power over concerns about how the money would be used. Mr Tusk made unlocking the funding a central part of his campaign when he ran for election in 2023. He has since vowed to rectify any mistakes or abuse that occurred. 'We put too much effort into unlocking these billions to allow anyone to waste them,' he said over the weekend, promising that 'anyone who made mistakes will face consequences, regardless of their position or party affiliation'. Preliminary inquiries have been opened by prosecutors, with initial results from an audit to be released next month.
Qatar Tribune
3 days ago
- Politics
- Qatar Tribune
New Polish president invited to White House in September
dpa Warsaw Poland's new right-wing President Karol Nawrocki has received an invitation to meet US President Donald Trump during a working visit to the White House next month, Nawrocki's office announced on Saturday. The invitation was issued along with Trump's message of congratulation on the occasion of Nawrocki's inauguration on Wednesday, it said. Nawrocki, a right-wing conservative and political opponent of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, is an outspoken Trump admirer. The 42-year-old historian is officially independent but is seen as close to the nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS). He emerged victorious in the second round of the presidential election at the beginning of June. Trump received Nawrocki, a novice on the world stage, in May during the Polish election campaign, with the White House publishing a photo showing the two men in the Oval Office making a thumbs-up sign. The visit and photo were seen as boosting Nawrocki's chances.
Euractiv
4 days ago
- Politics
- Euractiv
Warsaw woes: How Germany wants to fix its toxic relationship with Poland
BERLIN – Germany's new coordinator for relations with Poland, Knut Abraham, had been in office for just three days when his job got a lot harder. On the night of 1 June, the Christian Democrat MP stayed up late listening to radio coverage of Poland's presidential election until he unwittingly fell asleep. Exit polls projected a narrow victory for Rafał Trzaskowski, backed by centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk, an ally of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. But when Abraham woke up, the final count confirmed the far-right nominee, Karol Nawrocki, as the winner. Abraham's first thought was: 'This will be a challenge, for the German-Polish relations as well." It's him who has to confront it. As coordinator, Abraham will support one of Merz's core European policy goals: repairing a relationship that is both essential for Europe's security architecture and deeply fraught. Abraham says his government has ideas on how to get there. And nothing, it seems, is off the table. History still hurts Germany and Poland are not only the largest economies on either side of the EU's east-west divide; they are also two of Europe's top military spenders and key backers of Ukraine against Russia's invasion. Yet the Nazi occupation of Poland, which claimed over five million Polish lives, remains an open wound. Germany's refusal to pay reparations is routinely weaponised by Poland's nationalist Law and Order party (PiS), which backed Nawrocki. Being too lenient towards Berlin can thus be a political risk in Polish politics. This week, the Polish foreign office fired Abraham's Polish counterpart and scrapped the position altogether over rumours that the incumbent had proposed a seminar on returning cultural objects left behind by expelled Germans in 1945. Merz has vowed to be "empathetic towards our eventful history" and "end the speechlessness between Berlin and Warsaw," which he blamed on the preceding government. But his own decision to close Germany's border to asylum-seekers once in office fuelled the flames and handed new talking points to Poland's far right. Germany's move to block entry to irregular migrants led to the spread of false rumours that German police were systematically pushing asylum-seekers into Poland. In response, Poland has instated checks of its own, capping a botched start for Merz's German-Polish reset. The price to pay Abraham, who served as an envoy at the German embassy in Warsaw for three years, admitted that the border issue is proving a major burden for the relationship. But he insists that the temporary checks also 'signal a change in Germany's migration policy that aligns more closely with Poland's position,' he said, adding that he 'encountered a lot of understanding' from Polish officials. That is the key priority for him: 'The most important thing is to restore trust," Abraham said, adding that the new government was 'already integrating Poland at a level of intensity that the previous government did not demonstrate'. Merz notably became the first chancellor to visit Warsaw on his first day in office, and took a trip with Tusk and the leaders of France and Britain to Kyiv three days later. A joint cabinet meeting is being prepared for this year, and the signing of a bilateral friendship treaty in 2026 is on the table. But more importantly, Abraham says that the government has resumed negotiations over a goodwill package that Merz's predecessor, Olaf Scholz, had been working on before they collapsed last year over withholding funding. The package also included investments in Poland's security. Warsaw took that "as an affront and proof of German disinterest", he said, adding that the Germans ultimately failed "to develop genuine joint initiatives based on Polish priorities, including security, external border protection, and cyber security." According to Abraham, the government is also taking seriously the Polish desire to get Germany's support on security matters. Warsaw shares 1,310 kilometres of border with Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, protected by a military bulwark, the so-called East Shield. But Germany first consistently underestimated the threat from Russia, then Scholz's government blocked Polish initiatives for joint EU funding for Europe's eastern flank, to Warsaw's dismay. It is no longer off limits: Abraham said that Germany "should be very receptive" if Poland asked for financial support to beef up its Eastern frontier. PiS and pragmatism The election of a PiS-backed president, who was inaugurated on Wednesday, has complicated Berlin's plans, however. His victory means that Tusk's policy agenda will mostly be blocked by a hostile president ahead of the 2027 national elections. Abraham notes that this has all but kicked off the Polish campaign, with Tusk now forced to focus on messaging, which includes being cautious about cooperating with Berlin. After all, Nawrocki has previously railed against Germany, while Tusk has also faced personal smear campaigns over his grandfather's forced service in the German Wehrmacht. But the German coordinator tries to be pragmatic: Nawrocki's victory won't change anything substantive about the relationship, he said, adding that Nawrocki's predecessor was also PiS-backed and had stood by Poland's EU membership, NATO integration, and support for Ukraine. Germany won't be able to "expect applause at all times" for his offers of cooperation, he said. But if they "reflect a clear desire for friendship and partnership ... I'm positive that they will elicit the right resonance in the Polish debate". (mm)
Yomiuri Shimbun
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Poland's New President Draws Battlelines with Government over Constitution
WARSAW, Aug 6 (Reuters) – New Polish President Karol Nawrocki vowed on Wednesday to change the country's constitution to protect its sovereignty in an address to parliament after his inauguration that set the scene for a battle with the government over democratic standards. Nationalist Nawrocki's speech began what looks set to be at least two years of bitter conflict with centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who wants to move Warsaw closer to the EU and roll back contested judicial reforms implemented by the president's allies, the conservative Law and Justice (PiS). The president has the power to veto laws, leading to the political deadlock already seen under the previous presidency of PiS ally Andrzej Duda, which ended on Wednesday. The president can also propose his own bills. He did not specify what changes he was seeking, but called for limits on which areas the EU can influence. PiS accuses Tusk of undermining the constitution in his efforts to unwind the court reforms, which the EU said subverted democratic norms. PiS says they made the system fairer and more efficient. However, a change of constitution requires a two-thirds majority in parliament. PiS are currently in opposition after losing power in 2023, but hope that Nawrocki's win will spur them to victory at the next parliamentary election in 2027. 'Recently, the Polish constitution has been violated so regularly that we, as the political class, must begin working on solutions for a new constitution that will be ready for adoption, I hope and believe, in 2030,' Nawrocki said. The former head of Poland's Institute of National Remembrance, who was backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, said he was opposed to illegal migration and Poland adopting the euro. No parties in Poland have proposed joining the euro zone in the foreseeable future, while both the government and PiS have tried to talk tough on immigration. 'I will therefore be the voice of those who want a sovereign Poland that is in the European Union … but is and will remain Poland,' he said, as he promised to oppose any attempts by Brussels to 'take away Poland's powers'. 'NO COOPERATION' PiS lawmakers in the chamber were jubilant, while those from the broad pro-European coalition led by Tusk looked on in dismay. 'The new president, who announces the breaking of the constitution, a lack of respect for the rule of law … is definitely a bad start,' Deputy Prime Minister Krzystof Gawkowski, from smaller coalition partner the Left, said on X. 'There will be no cooperation here.' The government says that PiS politicised the judiciary during eight years in power that ended in 2023. PiS denies that, saying its reforms, which changed the way judges are appointed and their disciplinary procedure, aimed to remove residual communist influence. However, the government's progress on rolling back PiS's reforms has been slow, and this along with a failure to deliver on other promises such as liberalising abortion laws has hurt its popularity. Hundreds of supporters of Nawrocki gathered outside parliament in a sea of red and white Polish flags, before marching to the Presidential Palace. PiS had urged their supporters to turn out en masse, accusing their liberal opponents of trying to subvert the will of the people with court challenges to the election defeat of Rafal Trzaskowski. The Supreme Court validated the election result, saying that irregularities at some polling stations had no material impact on the overall outcome.
