Poland

The passport operation of the so-called Ładoś Group described by Mordecai Paldiel was characterised by daring, flexibility and a number of paradoxes.

Polish diplomats made a daring attempt to save thousands of Jews. As a result, at least several hundred people were saved from death.

Joining the EU was the result of exercising sovereignty, not restricting it. If Poland must comply with the judgements of the Court of Justice of the European Union, it is only because it has previously made a sovereign decision to do so – writes Prof. Jacek CZAPUTOWICZ

Love for individual and collective freedom is part of the Polish DNA. It has helped us survive the most difficult moments in our history.

I am standing here before you today in the Parliament, to set out our position on a number of issues which I believe are fundamental for the future of the European Union. Not just for the future of Poland, but for the future of the Union as a whole.

There is a popular saying in modern Polish: “to defend something like independence.” It means taking a clear and determined stance for some idea or value. Where does the expression come from?

The current state of relations between Brussels and governments in Central Europe is unsustainable.

“Chopin encapsulates everything we were denied: colourful noblemen’s robes, gilded sashes, sombre czamarka coats, four-cornered caps, the rattling of noble’s sabres, the glint of peasant’s scythes, the moaning coming from a wounded chest, the rebellion of a shackled spirit, cemetery crosses, roadside village churches, the prayers of worried hearts, the pain of enslavement, the cursing of tyrants and the happy song of victory,” said Ignacy Jan Paderewski in 1910 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Frédéric Chopin’s birth, giving a pithy description of the meaning Chopin’s music had for the enslaved and partitioned Polish nation as well as its extraordinary immersion in Polish culture.

The current rapid economic development is possible thanks to the great industriousness of Poles, who – with their diligence, resourcefulness and ability to adapt to changing conditions – contribute every day to building the economic success of enterprises and, as a result, of the whole economy. Poles work hard – they are one of the hardest working nations in the world – but it brings tangible results. Since 2004, when Poland joined the European Union, the country’s GDP has risen by 90 per cent. Under the current government coalition our domestic product has grown by more than one fifth. This is really impressive growth, which has been achieved in difficult competitive conditions.

Legal arguments presented by the European Commission put at stake the very sovereignty of the peoples of Europe. ​It is up to the peoples of sovereign nation-states to determine which laws apply on their territory. I fully support the Polish people and their government in asserting the autonomy of their legal order.

Flying in thousands of migrants from the Middle East to Minsk and trying to smuggle them from Belarus across EU’s eastern border is nothing more than yet another hybrid operation orchestrated by Russia, this time to put European solidarity to the test. Lithuania and Poland are standing up to this test with the support of other EU member states.

Poland is one of those countries that have suffered the greatest losses in the course of the 20th century. 6 million Poles were killed during WW2. As compensation for its Eastern Borderlands, Poland was given the ruined regions of Silesia and Pomerania.

Nations with a long history treat economy as a tool for strengthening the community, and see community values as a source of lasting prosperity.

The countries in the Three Seas Region were hit less by COVID-19 pandemic and are forecast to recover faster than the rest of the EU due to infrastructural investment, good economic location and highly-skilled workforce.

Poland has been a target of ill-founded accusations that exploit the history of WWII and unfair interpretations of the relations between the Poles and the Jews for quite a while now. Every year sees the wartime Poland being described in international media as Nazi Germany’s accomplice in the Holocaust.

n many European countries the question concerning Muslim immigrants and refugees, Muslim minorities, Islam and radical political Islamism become a central political problem and one of the main points of public debate. It comes up frequently even in people’s everyday conversations in France, Belgium and Germany etc. This is not the case in Poland. For Poles is not a central matter of political dispute, and it does not – at least in the present – attract much public attention.

Despite the pandemic and the UK leaving the European Union, the Visegrad countries strive to further tighten cooperation with their British partner even more than ever before. Thanks to many converging political, economic and security interests, as well as increasing knowledge about Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, and more broadly the whole of Central Europe, one can count on maintaining close relations also in the future and a growing mutual inspiration.

We know it from anecdotes, family keepsakes, and politicised stories. Wondering what it used to be, why our parents joined the cause, what it was that they criticised and why.

The year 1989 would not have happened if it had not been for 1920. Both are worthy of the name “annus mirabilis”.

The Battle of Warsaw in 1920 was not only a culminating moment of the Polish-Bolshevik war but also one of the decisive events in the history of Europe and the world. The British diplomat Lord Edgar Vincent D’Abernon, an eyewitness to those events, claimed in his book The Eighteenth Decisive Battle of the World that the Poles had saved the Western civilization from the fanatical tyranny of the Soviet. Unfortunately, the European nations are not aware of this historical fact.