Page 3 - Poland Outlook 2024

Executive Summary
Poland is in for a year even more tumultuous than 2023, as the new government headed by Donald Tusk will attempt a number of ambitious reforms, some of which at least will be torpedoed by President Andrzej Duda, a staunch ally of the formerly ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.
The cohabitation of Tusk and Duda will last until mid-2025, when the next presidential election is held in which Duda cannot stand after completing two terms in office.
At home, the Tusk government will likely preside over a period of renewed economic growth, which, however, could sputter – or at least not fulfill its potential – if Duda and PiS manage to thwart changes and/or if the geopolitical situation worsens.
Internationally, Poland remains in the hot seat as one of the EU’s big member states exposed via its geographical location next to Russia at war with neighbouring Ukraine, Russia’s ally Belarus and Ukraine itself. Tusk’s ascent to power will, however, make Poland end its isolation in the bloc– even though new challenges will be quick to emerge.
One of those challenges will be Ukraine’s prospect of becoming a new EU member state, which will likely kick-start a major debate in Poland, especially over Ukraine’s agricultural might. Poland will want to seek concessions and otherwise influence the shape of post-Ukraine agricultural policy in a process that is due to begin in 2024, even if Kyiv’s actual membership is still years away.
1.0 Political outlook
Poland entered a period of prolonged political struggle on the night of October 15 when the results of the election were announced, showing that the era of right-wing radicals from Law and Justice (PiS) is over.
A four-party liberal-left coalition led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk took over in mid-December – only after PiS exhausted all legal possibilities to delay the transition of power – and was immediately faced with the chaos PiS had left. Moreover, it was also faced with the PiS-friendly President Andrzej Duda guarding it.
Early in 2024, the political outlook is that the new government is struggling to push through key reforms against a hostile president and the still strong PiS, which are stopping at virtually nothing to discredit Tusk and his cabinet.
Arguably the key reform that Tusk has undertaken is rolling back the hugely controversial changes in the judiciary that PiS had implemented while in power.
That met fierce resistance from Duda and the PiS-engineered Constitutional Tribunal and other institutions where PiS had planted loyalists, such as the
3 Poland Outlook 2021 www.intellinews.com