r/europes

Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of Poland’s opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, today suggested that Hungary’s incoming prime minister, Péter Magyar, killed a puppy in a microwave, repeating a false and widely debunked online claim.

A few hours later, a party spokesman admitted that Kaczyński had been wrong, saying that he had “relied on information that has been circulated by the media”. However, he added that the PiS leader stood by other criticism of Magyar, who Kaczyński says “should not exist in public life”.

Kaczyński is a longstanding ally of Viktor Orbán, who on Sunday was ousted as prime minister in elections comprehensively won by Magyar’s Tisza party. Meanwhile, Magyar enjoys friendly relations with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who is a bitter enemy of Kaczyński.

Speaking to the media in parliament on Tuesday, Kaczyński said that Magyar “is a man to whom I will not, under any circumstances, offer my congratulations”, adding that “such people simply should not exist in the public life of Poland, Europe, or the world”.

“What I know about this gentleman is that his victory is one of the symptoms of the complete indifference of European societies to drastic facts,” continued the PiS leader, saying that Magyar had committed “unbelievable acts in his private life”.

Pressed for an example, he suggested that Magyar had “cooked a puppy”, referring to a claim that Magyar’s ex-wife, former Hungarian justice minister Judit Varga, had written an autobiography in which she said that Magyar had killed a puppy in a microwave.

However, that claim, which was first reported by an anonymous website created a week before the elections, has been widely debunked, including by Varga herself, who has confirmed she that never wrote such a book.

Kaczyński’s dissemination of the false claim was widely criticised by Polish commentators and politicians from Tusk’s ruling coalition. Around four hours later, PiS party spokesman Rafał Bochenek issued a statement on social media acknowledging Kaczyński’s error though offering no apology for it.

“In connection with today’s statement by Chairman Kaczyński referring to the behaviours of Mr Péter Magyar (including the thread about the puppy in the microwave), I would like to point out that Chairman Kaczyński relied on information that had been circulated by the media for many days,” he wrote.

“Amid the multitude of numerous controversial materials depicting situations involving the candidate supported by Tusk, it just so happens that this one turned out to be untrue,” he added.

“It would be good if the others were also fabricated, but unfortunately they are not. It is characteristic that these behaviours and statements do not bother Tusk,” concluded Bochenek, without giving any examples of such unacceptable behaviour by Magyar.

PiS strongly support Orbán and his Fidesz party in the Hungarian elections. Kaczyński himself said that an Orbán victory was vital for Europe in order to hold back “German neo-imperialism”.

By contrast, Tusk has regularly clashed with Orbán and celebrated Magyar’s victory. Magyar himself has announced that his first foreign visit once he becomes prime minister will be to Poland.

Meanwhile, Magyar has pledged to facilitate the extradition to Poland of two former PiS government ministers who fled criminal charges and were granted asylum by Orbán’s government.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Russia has installed an exhibition titled “Ten Centuries of Polish Russophobia” outside the entrance to a cemetery containing the remains of thousands of Poles murdered by the Soviets in the Katyn massacre of 1940.

The outdoor exhibit, which includes a section downplaying Soviet responsibility for the massacre, was opened just before Poland marked its annual day of remembrance for victims of the killings.

The exhibition is organised by the Russian Military Historical Society (RMHS), which was established in 2012 by Vladimir Putin to “counter attempts to distort Russian history”. The body is overseen by the defence and culture ministries and is chaired by Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Putin.

Made up of a series of panels, the exhibition was first displayed in central Moscow last year and, according to the RMHS, aims to show how “Russophobia has become the foundation of Polish political consciousness today” and how “the origins of modern neo-Nazism in Poland are deeply rooted in history”.

In fact, neo-Nazism is a completely marginal phenomenon in Poland, and the country has strict laws against the promotion of Nazi or other fascist ideologies.

While most Poles do hold negative views of Russia, those are rooted in Russian and Soviet aggression against and dominance over Poland, and have been further exacerbated by Moscow’s ongoing aggression against Poland’s eastern neighbour, Ukraine.

The exhibition presents a revisionist version of history in keeping with the Kremlin’s narrative. For example, according to the RMHS, it presents evidence that “a German trace is evident” in the Katyn massacres despite Polish claims that “only the Russians are to blame” for the killings.

In fact, the massacres, in which around 22,000 Polish military officers, members of the intelligentsia, and other officials and prisoners of war were killed, were carried out by the Soviet secret police on Joseph Stalin’s orders.

When evidence of the massacre first came to light in 1943, the Soviets falsely blamed it on Nazi Germany, a position Moscow maintained until the 1990s, when it finally admitted responsibility for the crime. However, in recent years, Russia has begun to move back towards its former position.

The exhibition was opened outside the Polish war cemetery in Katyn, where the remains of over 4,000 victims are buried, on 10 April, just before Poland held its annual day of remembrance for the victims on 13 April. It will remain there until mid-May.

Mikhail Myagkov, the RMHS’s academic director, said that the display is intended to show how Poland had in the past “seized Russian territory and exterminated Russians, Belarusians, and Little Russians [a derogatory term used to refer to Ukrainians]”.

The exhibition also shows how “the Soviets lost over 600,000 men during the liberation of Poland”, he added. Poland, however, does not see Soviet actions in 1944-45 as a liberation, given that they resulted in further decades of brutal communist rule imposed by Moscow.

Moreover, Russia’s historical narrative fails to acknowledge that, at the start of the war in September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east as part of an agreement with Nazi Germany, which had two weeks earlier attacked from the west, to divide Polish lands between them.

Last year, Polish military symbols were removed from another cemetery in Russia housing the remains of Katyn victims, prompting condemnation from Poland’s foreign ministry.  So far, however, there has been no official response from Poland regarding the opening of the exhibition outside the Katyn cemetery.

Polish-Russian relations have been particularly tense in recent years. Poland has been a strong supporter of Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, and has consistently led calls for tougher sanctions against Moscow.

Meanwhile, agents working on behalf of Russia have carried out a series of so-called hybrid actions in Poland, including sabotage, arson, cyberattacks and disinformation.

That has prompted Poland to successively close all of Russia’s consulates in the country, with Moscow doing the same with Polish consulates on its territory in a tit-for-tat response.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

https://preview.redd.it/vedkm7wewdwg1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=de1ab3f6e2d92f44c9eaee8d66e88e960ab7ebc5

In questi mesi abbiamo sentito parlare sempre di più di REMIGRAZIONE.

Dalle campagne politiche dell’estrema destra fino alla recente manifestazione in Piazza Duomo a Milano (a cui ha aderito la Lega di Salvini, mentre Fratelli d’Italia e Forza Italia non hanno partecipato al corteo), la parola significa fondamentalmente una cosa: «rimandiamoli a casa loro».

Come ha spiegato benissimo Pagella Politica, il termine indicava nelle scienze sociali il ritorno volontario dei migranti nel Paese d'origine. 

A partire dagli anni ‘90 però è stata progressivamente adottata dai partiti di estrema destra in Austria, Francia e in Germania come soluzione «all'islamizzazione del continente».

Secondo la Treccani è un «eufemismo dietro il quale si cela il ritorno forzato di persone immigrate nei loro Paesi d'origine». 

Secondo i teorici della «remigrazione», le espulsioni per gli stranieri privi di permesso di soggiorno non bastano. 

Serve un piano per far tornare nei Paesi d'origine anche le persone legalmente presenti in Italia: cittadini extracomunitari con permesso di soggiorno da almeno un anno, richiedenti asilo e titolari di permessi non rinnovabili. 

Negli anni scorsi la parola è arrivata negli Stati Uniti, complice anche Donald Trump.

E quindi si è diffusa anche in Italia. 

Da una parte grazie a Roberto Vannacci che la userà come architrave del suo nuovo partito. 

E dall'altra per una proposta di legge di iniziativa popolare avanzata dal Comitato Nazionale Remigrazione e Riconquista, che vediamo è formato da: 

1️⃣ CasaPound Italia 

2️⃣ Rete dei patrioti 

3️⃣ VFS 

4️⃣ Brescia ai Bresciani

La proposta contiene 24 articoli, e premette che «non esiste un diritto intrinseco a migrare». 

Istituisce un fondo per la remigrazione, così da sostenere il rientro volontario e assistenza al rientro degli stranieri regolari. 

Questo fondo servirebbe a dare incentivi economici alle persone che vogliono ritornare nel loro Paese, compresi i corsi di orientamento professionale e programmi di reinserimento.

Scrivono che l'adesione formalmente è volontaria, però comporta la sottoscrizione di un patto che vieta il rientro in Italia. 

A Febbraio aveva superato abbondantemente le 50 mila firme necessarie per essere presentate in Parlamento. 

Ma difficilmente passerà, visto che, come ha calcolato Pagella Politica, negli ultimi 30 anni meno dell'1% delle proposte è poi arrivata in fondo all'esame parlamentare.

Ma il punto è più di comunicazione. 

Sempre più partiti, a volte cavalcando vicende d'attualità, stanno facendo campagne per rivoluzionare le politiche di migrazione, secondo loro inadeguate per quella che magari chiamano «sostituzione etnica». 

In questa lotta adesso vengono usate parole morbide e rassicuranti che secondo esperti, tipo Valerio Renzi, studioso dell'estrema destra, sarebbero una patina per lo «sdoganamento ulteriore di un approccio razzista alle politiche migratorie».

####Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are set to co-chair a gathering of left-wing leaders in Barcelona on Saturday aimed at countering the rise of the far right and strengthening democratic institutions. The meeting brings together figures from across Europe, Africa and Latin America amid growing global political polarisation.

The gathering comes as democratic institutions and values have faced growing threats around the globe from advancing authoritarian and far-right forces in the age of US President Donald Trump.

Both Lula and Sanchez will address this gathering, which will feature talks on issues such as income inequality, the green transition and how progressives can improve their election results.

Sanchez, in power since 2018, has emerged as a prominent figure for Europe's disillusioned progressives, who see him as one of the few remaining openly leftist voices in a continent increasingly dominated by right-wing politics.

His vigorous criticism of Israel, championing of immigration and staunch opposition to the US-Israeli war on Iran have bolstered his image as a left-wing hero.

##See also:

• Brazil, Mexico, Spain pledge to send more aid to Cuba (Reuters)

Poland has received a green light from the European Union to launch the bloc’s first hydrogen transmission network operator, paving the way for investment in infrastructure for the clean fuel.

On Wednesday, the Polish energy ministry and Gaz-System, Poland’s state gas transmission operator, announced that the European Commission has approved the certification of Gaz-System to also operate as a hydrogen transmission network operator.

Hydrogen is seen as an important element of the green transition, offering a clean, flexible and scalable way to cut emissions in sectors, such as transport and industry, that are difficult to decarbonise using electricity alone.

Polish energy minister Miłosz Motyka described the decision as a breakthrough for the country’s energy market, saying it offers “a concrete tool that will help accelerate investment in this area and strengthen the competitiveness of the Polish economy”.

His ministry noted that Gaz-System is the first company in Europe to go through the certification procedure, placing “Poland at the forefront of change” and making it “one of the leaders of the energy transition in Europe”.

Poland remains one of the most emissions-intensive economies in the EU relative to its size, relying heavily on coal for electricity and having one of the bloc’s lowest shares of electric vehicles.

However, state energy giant Orlen has been gradually shifting its focus away from oil and towards greener alternatives. In 2024, it opened its first publicly available hydrogen refuelling station for cars and buses. In February this year, it opened its fifth such facility.

Last year, Orlen secured 1.7 billion zloty (€400 million) in EU funds to expand its hydrogen projects. The company aims to build capacity to produce 0.9 gigawatts of hydrogen by 2035, most of it in Poland.

While hydrogen cars are still rare due to limited infrastructure, several Polish cities, including Poznań, Gdańsk and Płock, have already introduced fleets of hydrogen-fuelled buses.

By the end of this decade, Orlen aims to have 111 hydrogen refuelling stations operating in Poland (57), the Czech Republic (28) and Slovakia (26), making it the regional leader in hydrogen infrastructure.

Gaz-System does not yet own a hydrogen transmission network, but the company noted in a statement that the European Commission does not see it as an obstacle to granting it certification, given the current stage of the hydrogen market’s development.

The certification confirms compliance with EU rules requiring the separation of transmission system operators from energy production and sales activities, in line with a positive assessment issued last month by the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER).

The next steps include Gaz-System submitting a ten-year network development plan and securing a final decision from Poland’s Energy Regulatory Office (URE).

The firm also says that it hopes its certification will “enable future operators to plan, finance and build hydrogen networks, which is crucial for the rapid growth of this sector in Europe”.

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is deputy editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She has written for Clean Energy Wire and The Times, and she hosts her own podcast, The Warsaw Wire, on Poland’s economy and energy sector. She previously worked for Reuters.

A gunman wielding an automatic weapon killed six people and barricaded himself inside a supermarket with hostages in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on Saturday, before he was shot and killed by police, authorities said.

At least 14 people were wounded and taken to hospital.

The 58-year-old attacker was not named by police, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was born in Russia, as authorities worked to piece together a motive for the violence.

The mass shooting — unheard of in wartime Kyiv following Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — took place in a busy central district of the city, outside an apartment block and a nearby shopping center, leaving bodies on a crowded street as bystanders fled for safety.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw victims’ bodies in the street covered with emergency blankets before they were taken away.

“The assailant has been neutralized. He had taken hostages and, tragically, killed one of them. He also murdered four people on the street. Another woman died in the hospital due to severe injuries,” Zelenskyy said.

Following his resounding election victory over Viktor Orbán on Sunday, Hungary’s newly elected leader, Péter Magyar, has confirmed that his first foreign trip as prime minister will be to Poland.

Magyar’s success has been hailed by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who says he is “glad that our part of Europe is showing we are not doomed to corrupt and authoritarian governments”.

Meanwhile, the change in administration in Budapest will raise questions over the fate of two Polish opposition politicians granted asylum there by Orbán. Magyar recently promised to extradite them on his first day in office, but the situation is not quite so simple.

On Sunday evening, as ongoing vote counting made it clear that the opposition Tisza party would triumph, Magyar revealed that Orbán had called him to concede defeat.

By Monday morning, near-complete results showed Tisza on course for a landslide victory, including a vital two-thirds majority in parliament that would allow the new government to change the constitution.

After casting his own vote on Sunday, Magyar told the media that, if he emerged victorious, “my first trip abroad will be to Warsaw, as agreed with Donald Tusk”. Subsequently, he intends to visit Vienna and Brussels.

Tusk, meanwhile, had just arrived in South Korea for a state visit. However, when asked by a reporter about his upcoming talks in Seoul, Tusk replied: “Let’s not kid ourselves. Right now, I only have Hungary on my mind and in my heart, and joy, because for us it was very important for many reasons.”

He said that he had already spoken with Magyar to congratulate him and briefly discuss his visit to Warsaw. Tusk shared a video of part of the call on social media, in which he was heard telling Magyar, “I think I’m happier than you, you know”.

Speaking to the press, Tusk expressed hope that the change in government in Budapest would lead to the release of EU funds for Poland and Ukraine that Orbán had blocked. But Tusk also noted that the Hungarian election result had much broader significance, showing that there is “no authoritarian trend”.

Pointing to his own coalition’s ousting of the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) in Poland in 2023, as well as recent victories for pro-EU forces in Romania and Moldova, Tusk said he was “glad this part of Europe is showing that we’re not doomed to corrupt and authoritarian governments”.

In February, Tusk and Magyar met on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Shortly afterwards, Magyar announced that, “on the first day” of his future government, he would seek to extradite two PiS politicians who have been granted asylum in Hungary.

Former deputy justice minister Marcin Romanowski fled Poland in 2024 as prosecutors moved to bring charges against him for 11 alleged crimes – including participating in an organised criminal group, using crime as a source of income, and abuse of power – from his time serving in the PiS government.

He was followed in 2025 by Zbigniew Ziobro, who served as justice minister and prosecutor general throughout PiS’s eight years in power. Ziobro is accused of 26 crimes, including leading a criminal group, abusing his powers and approving the unlawful purchase of Pegasus spyware.

However, extraditing the pair back to Poland – if indeed they now remain in Hungary – will not be quite so simple. Poland, for example, has not yet even issued a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) against Ziobro, which would be the basis for any extradition.

Meanwhile, Polish broadcaster TVN notes that a new law came into force in Hungary at the start of this year prohibiting the extradition of individuals under an EAW if they have asylum, as both Ziobro and Romanowski do.

Ziobro has not yet publicly commented on the election result. But Romanowski spoke about it to Polish broadcaster Republika.

He noted that, however much Magyar has tried to portray extradition as a government decision, it will be “up to a court to decide” on the issue. Romanowski added that he “would not reveal [my] new address and plan of action”. 

PiS, which has long been a close ally of Orbán’s Fidesz party, had strongly supported the Hungarian prime minister’s reelection campaign. Earlier this month, PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński said that an Orbán victory was vital to prevent the EU from becoming an instrument for “German neo-imperialism”.

Kaczyński acknowledged that his strongly anti-Russian party differed from the Moscow-friendly Fidesz on certain issues. But he argued that Orbán “has no choice” but to maintain good relations with Vladimir Putin because of Hungary’s dependence on Russian energy.

A delegation of PiS MPs also travelled to Budapest on Friday to express their support for Orbán’s campaign.

Poland’s right-wing president, Karol Nawrocki, visited Orbán in Budapest last month. However, he notably made no endorsement of the Hungarian leader, nor indeed issued any statement about the visit.

Late on Sunday, after Magyar’s victory had become clear, Nawrocki’s chief security advisor, Sławomir Cenckiewicz, wrote on social media that, while Orbán had been an ally against the “cosmopolitans and centralists in the EU”, in others areas – particularly on Russia and energy – he was “completely at odds with our interests”.

The fact that many on the Polish right had tried to “relativise” these concerns “was a mistake (to put it mildly)”, wrote Cenkiewicz.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

🇺🇸 "Law that has allowed U.S. intelligence agencies to collect... overseas communications without needing search warrants is set to expire"

Here is a completely wild thought: instead of changing or renewing it, how about the USA stops ignoring people's basic rights worldwide? 🤪

Poland and South Korea have signed an agreement to enhance cooperation on defence, energy, science and infrastructure, bolstering what has become an increasingly important relationship for both countries in recent years.

Speaking on a visit to Seoul, Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, described South Korea as his country’s “most important ally after the United States, especially in the defence industry”, report Polish news outlets RMF and Interia.

Tusk’s visit to South Korea is the first by a Polish prime minister in 27 years. After leaving Seoul, his delegation, which also includes finance minister Andrzej Domański and agriculture minister Stefan Krajewski, will travel onwards to Japan.

Following a meeting between Tusk and Korean President Lee Jae Myung, the two leaders announced that they had “upgraded our bilateral relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership”.

Tusk said that expanded defence cooperation will be the “driving force”, but the countries would also deepen ties in “digitalisation, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, space exploration, energy, infrastructure, and transport”.

Recent data show that, during Poland’s unprecedented defence procurement spree since 2022, South Korea has been the biggest supplier of military hardware, accounting for 47% of imports, just ahead of the United States on 44%.

Tusk noted that South Korea is already Asia’s biggest investor in Poland and said that efforts were also being made to “even out the trade balance” by bolstering Polish exports to South Korea.

Meanwhile, Lee called Poland “one of Korea’s five most important trade partners among EU countries”, saying that their relationship was based on “deep mutual trust”.

He said that firms from his country were keen on participating in key infrastructure projects in Poland, such as a new “mega airport” and transport hub that will be built near Warsaw.

South Korea and Poland first signed a strategic partnership in 2013 but their bilateral cooperation has accelerated since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which prompted Poland to boost its defence spending to the highest relative level in NATO.

Since then, Poland has signed tens of billions of dollars worth of contracts to buy Korean military hardware, including tanks, self-propelled howitzers, light combat aircraft and rocket artillery launchers.

Under those agreements, some elements of that equipment will be produced in Poland itself.

Recent years have also seen Polish-Korean relations develop in other areas. Last year, construction commenced in the Hyundai Heavy Industries shipyard of a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal ordered by Poland that will eventually be located in the Polish city of Gdańsk.

In November, South Korea’s government agency responsible for supporting the creation and distribution of creative content opened an office in Warsaw, which it says will act as a regional hub for promoting Korean cultural products and working with local creators.

Meanwhile, South Korean tyre manufacturer Kumho in December confirmed plans to establish a new plant in Poland, which will be its first in Europe. In 2022, Daesang Corporation chose Poland as the location for its first plant in Europe production the Korean delicacy of kimchi.

Olivier Sorgho

Olivier Sorgho is senior editor at Notes from Poland, covering politics, business and society. He previously worked for Reuters.

• Russia contracted 1.8% in first two months
• Putin scolds economic officials over contraction
• Kremlin: economic officials have made proposals
• Russia likely to benefit from higher energy prices

Russia's top officials have outlined numerous proposals to President Vladimir Putin on how to kick-start ​the war economy after he scolded them for what amounts to Russia's sharpest economic contraction in more than three years.

Russia's economy, which ‌contracted in 2022 but grew in 2023, 2024 and 2025, has outperformed most expectations and avoided a crash which Western powers had hoped to stoke by slapping on the most onerous sanctions ever imposed on a major economy.

But the strain of the war in Ukraine - the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two - and double-digit interest rates, slowed ​growth to just 1% last year. Putin said on Wednesday that the economy had contracted 1.8% in the first two months of this ​year.

Russia's $3.1 trillion economy contracted 1.4% in 2022, but grew 4.1% in 2023 and 4.9% in 2024. It grew only 1% last year and Moscow's official forecast for this year is ‌1.3%.

While there were serious concerns in Moscow about the economic slowdown ahead of the Iran war, the biggest energy supply crisis in modern history is likely to bolster the oil producing economy.

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday raised its forecast for Russia's economic growth this year to 1.1%, from 0.8% previously, due to higher oil and other commodity prices as a result of the Middle East crisis.

Still, according to Russian state statistics, the last quarterly contraction of such intensity ​as the first quarter of this ​year was likely in the first ⁠three months of 2023, when GDP declined by 0.8%.

Poland’s largest opposition party, the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS), has been thrown into turmoil amid efforts by more moderate figures, led by former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, to form a new internal group.

The party’s spokesman, Rafał Bochenek, has threatened “disciplinary consequences” against dozens of MPs who have joined an association formed by Morawiecki, while leader Jarosław Kaczyński says they will not be allowed to stand as PiS candidates in next year’s parliamentary election.

Internal tensions have long been brewing within PiS, which has seen its support in polls collapse from around 32% at the start of 2025 to around 25% now, which is its lowest level in 14 years.

In particular, there has been a division between more hardline elements – who believe that the party should move even further to the right to compete with two surging far-right parties – and more moderate figures, who argue that ceding the political centre ground would be disastrous.

The hardliners were given a boost at the start of March, when Kaczyński announced that one of their leading figures, Przemysław Czarnek, would be the party’s prime ministerial candidate in next year’s parliamentary elections.

However, since then, PiS has seen no significant boost in the polls, prompting growing frustration from the moderates. This week, their figurehead, Morawiecki, who is a deputy leader of PiS, announced the formation of a new association intended to represent and promote their position.

Its founders insist that the association, called Growth Plus (Rozwój Plus), is meant to operate within PiS, not to compete with it, and to focus on promoting plans for Poland’s economic development put forward by Morawiecki, a former banker who served as PiS prime minister from 2017 to 2023.

“PiS always won when it was able to be broad, when we united diverse groups around a common goal,” wrote Morawiecki on social media. “We cannot let ourselves be pushed out of the centre of Polish politics. That is where the most important decisions are made today.”

Around 40 of PiS’s 188 MPs are reported to have joined the association, including former government ministers such as Michał Dworczyk, Janusz Cieszyński and Waldemar Buda.

One of the members, former deputy foreign minister Paweł Jabłoński, said that the association would provide “a new formula…that will strengthen the centre-right and help push the disastrous government of [Prime Minister Donald] Tusk out of power”.

However, the new association has been met with a frosty, and at times hostile, reception by many other party figures.

“Whoever wants to seek enemies on the right, whoever wants to divide us, whoever puts their own interest above the good of Poland – that person will find neither my support nor my approval…It is a betrayal,” wrote Czarnek on social media, without naming Morawiecki or the association directly.

On Thursday evening, following a meeting of PiS’s leadership, party spokesman Rafał Bochenek announced that the activities of the new association are “contrary to PiS’s statute”, which bars “membership of any organisation whose goals are contrary to the goals, principles, programme or interests of PiS”.

“PiS members cannot be members of another political organisation” and any such “activities…will result in disciplinary consequences”, said Bochenek, quoted by news website Onet.

In response, Morawiecki told broadcaster Republika that he “certainly will not withdraw” his association and instead hopes to “clear up any misunderstandings”. He insisted that his only actions “serve to expand PiS, so we can reach groups that are harder for us to reach”.

However, late on Friday morning, Kaczyński held a press conference at which he warned of tough measures against those who have joined Morawiecki’s association. “If this activity continues in its current form…there will be no places on the PiS party lists for the people involved,” he declared.

In Polish elections, each party puts forward a list of candidates in each voting district. Exclusion from those lists means no possibility of being elected to parliament.

In his remarks, Kaczyński praised Morawiecki, saying he “was a great prime minister”. However, he warned that he cannot allow “one party to grow out of another” like a form of “parasitism”.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

A court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jarosław Kaczyński against Prime Minister Donald Tusk for calling the former PiS government “serial killers of women” due to the tightening of abortion laws.

The judge found that Tusk’s comment did not specifically refer to Kaczyński. But he also argued that, as the leader of the party that had pushed for a near-total abortion ban, Kaczyński “bears moral responsibility for tragedies” that occurred as a result.

The dispute dates back to June 2023, when Tusk, then an opposition leader, gave a speech at a rally of his Civic Coalition (KO) party in the wake of news that a pregnant woman named Dorota had died in hospital from sepsis, reportedly after doctors had failed to perform an abortion.

It was one of a number of cases that women’s rights activists and the then-opposition blamed on a near-total abortion ban introduced under the PiS government in January 2021, which barred terminations of pregnancies when a defect was diagnosed in the foetus.

“Today, those in power are serial killers of women,” said Tusk in his speech. “They are responsible for the deaths of these women; it is on their heads – Mr Kaczyński, on your head – that these tragedies, these deaths and this mourning occur.”

Kaczyński was at the time, and remains, the leader of the national-conservative PiS party, which ruled Poland from 2015 to 2023. The PiS government did not itself directly introduce the near-total abortion ban, which was implemented by a ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal (TK) issued in October 2020.

However, the TK ruling was made in response to a request by 119 MPs, most of them from PiS. Meanwhile, the TK itself was seen as being largely under PiS control, filled with judges aligned with the party, including a chief justice who was a close personal associate of Kaczyński.

Kaczyński himself had strongly advocated banning abortions due to birth defects, saying he would “strive to ensure that even very difficult pregnancies, when the child is condemned to death, is severely deformed, will end in birth, so that the child can be christened, buried, given a name”.

In response to Tusk’s “serial killers” speech, Kaczyński sued him for defamation, demanding that he apologise and pay 10,000 zloty for the charitable cause of helping refugees from Ukraine.

However, on Wednesday this week, the district court in Warsaw dismissed Kaczyński’s claim and ordered him to pay 900 zloty in legal costs for Tusk.

The judge, Tomasz Jaskłowski, noted that Tusk’s comments were made in the context of a political campaign when the abortion law was a key, contested topic. He also found that Tusk’s mention of “serial killers” did not refer directly to Kaczyński.

Jaskłowski added, however, that there were grounds to argue that “responsibility for these tragedies, for these deaths [of pregnant women], for these mournings falls on the head of the political leader who was behind the change in these [abortion] regulations”.

As such, “Mr Jarosław Kaczyński…bears moral responsibility for these tragedies”, the judge declared, quoted by Polsat News.

The TK’s abortion ruling prompted the largest protests Poland has since the fall of communism. Critics blame it for the deaths of pregnant women because the near-total ban made doctors more reluctant to carry out abortions.

However, conservative groups point out that the law still allows terminations to be performed in cases where the pregnancy threatens the mother’s health or life. They argue, therefore, that such deaths are the result of medical malpractice.

In March this year, an appeals court upheld prison sentences handed down last year to two doctors for their negligence in treating a pregnant woman who died in 2021 in hospital under their care.

Last year, meanwhile, prosecutors charged three doctors in relation to the 2023 death of the woman that prompted Tusk’s remarks.

At the October 2023 elections, PiS was ousted from power by a coalition of parties led by Tusk, which took office in December of that year.

However, while the new government pledged to liberalise the abortion law, it has so far failed to do so amid disagreements between more conservative and liberal elements over what form the new law should take. Tusk admitted in 2024 that abortion reform was impossible.

However, his government did publish new guidelines for when and how abortions can be carried out, with the aim of ensuring that doctors and prosecutors “take the women’s side” when making decisions on the issue.

Olivier Sorgho

Olivier Sorgho is senior editor at Notes from Poland, covering politics, business and society. He previously worked for Reuters.

El Correllengua Agermanat comença avui a Prada de Conflent amb l’ambició d’unir el país amb més de 5.000 inscrits, que faran relleus en disset etapes, 1.500 quilòmetres, per reivindicar el català per damunt les fronteres administratives. En total, la iniciativa passarà per més de 500 municipis fins el 5 de maig.

La flama s’encén a la tomba de Pompeu Fabra i recorrerà dos itineraris diferents, un per l’interior i l’altre per la costa –arribarà a Barcelona el 21 d’abril–, que tornaran a confluir a Tarragona abans de seguir cap al País Valencià –València, el 25 d’abril– i les Illes (Palma, el 2 de maig). El recorregut s’acabarà a l’Alguer.

La primera etapa uneix Prada de Conflent amb la Jonquera (Alt Empordà) i Bellver de Cerdanya. Podeu consultar tots els trams ací.