Five Things To Know About Poland Ahead Of Election

Key points

Results due on Monday
Centrist Trzaskowski favours strong EU ties
Nationalist Nawrocki inspired by Trump

ISLAMABAD: Poland holds a knife-edge presidential election on Sunday which will determine whether the largest country in the European Union’s eastern wing cements its place in the bloc’s mainstream or turns towards MAGA-style nationalism.

Turnout holds the key to the contest between Rafal Trzaskowski of ruling centrists Civic Coalition (KO), who holds a narrow lead, and Karol Nawrocki, backed by nationalists Law and Justice (PiS), according to Reuters.

Miesiące kampanii. Tysiące kilometrów, spotkań, rozmów. Dziękuję za każde z nich.

A dziś dotarliśmy na ostatni przystanek tej trasy – Ciechanów. Mimo późnej pory było Was bardzo, bardzo wiele. Dziękuję za to wsparcie na ostatniej prostej! ❤️

A teraz pełna mobilizacja. W… pic.twitter.com/SvECBWOkG9

— Rafał Trzaskowski (@trzaskowski_) May 30, 2025

Here are five things to know about Poland, a NATO and European Union member of 38 million people, which is holding a presidential run-off election on Sunday.

Migration

Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Poland has welcomed hundreds of thousands of refugees from its war-torn neighbour.

Around a million Ukrainian refugees now reside there, mostly women and children, according to official data. More than 1.5 million Ukrainians have valid Polish residence permits.

Warsaw has also been one of Kyiv’s staunchest allies, offering it political and military support.

But an anti-migrant backlash has become a hot-button issue.

The governing pro-EU coalition of Prime Minister Donald Tusk and the far-right opposition both back curbing social benefits for foreigners — including Ukrainians.

Asylum for migrants

Poland also faced criticism from human rights groups after it suspended the right to seek asylum for migrants crossing the border from Belarus.

The Polish authorities have accused Russia and its ally Belarus of pushing thousands of migrants over their borders in recent years.

They have blamed Minsk and Moscow for “hybrid attacks” they say are orchestrated to destabilise the EU.

Military spending

Poland far outstrips NATO’s two-per cent-of-GDP defence spending target, with 4.7 per cent of its economic output earmarked this year for military expenditures.

Next year, it aims to raise it further, to around five per cent of GDP — the level US President Donald Trump is pressuring allies to agree to.

Fearing threats from Russia, Poland has rapidly modernised its military via a string of arms contracts, mainly with the United States and South Korea.

Poland also signed a new treaty with France in May, committing both sides to mutual assistance in case of an attack by an aggressor.

In March, Warsaw announced plans for a large-scale military training scheme designed to ensure that every adult man in the country could be trained in case of war.

The scheme — open to both men and women — will be voluntary. The government hopes to offer the training to 100,000 civilians a year starting in 2027.

Climate woes

Poland remains heavily coal-dependent, accounting for around 63 per cent of its energy production.

Its massive Belchatow brown coal-fired power station is the EU’s “single largest greenhouse gas emitter”, according to environmental nonprofit Ember.

The previous government took a step towards transition from coal in September 2023 when it signed a deal for the country’s first nuclear power plant.

The first reactor is set to come online in 2033.

Poland plans to eventually have three nuclear power plants, each with three reactors, generating around 30 percent of its energy production.

Catholic Church

Long considered a Catholic bastion of Europe, Poland is proving to be less and less so, with a drop of more than 16 percentage points in people declaring themselves Catholic in the space of a decade.

According to the latest 2021 national census, 71.3 percent of Poles declared themselves Catholic, compared to 87.6 percent in 2011.

Poland’s once-powerful Catholic Church is now facing a popularity crisis following a series of sexual abuse cases among priests and accusations of preferential treatment by the nationalist party previously in power.