WARSAW: The victory of nationalist Karol Nawrocki in Poland\u2019s presidential election looks set to strain relations with Ukraine and embolden Donald Trump-inspired conservatives in central Europe, analysts and diplomats said on Monday.
\nNawrocki won a knife-edge vote that pitted him against Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, who was supported by the ruling centrists Civic Coalition (KO), dealing a major blow to the pro-European government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
\nWhile remaining committed to helping Ukraine\u2019s effort to fend off Russian\u2019s invasion, Nawrocki opposes Kyiv joining Western alliances such as NATO.
\nNawrocki rejects suggestions that his stance is pro-Russian. But his campaign, backed by the nationalist opposition party Law and Justice (PiS), tapped into a mix of weariness with Ukrainian refugees and worries Poland could be drawn into the war over the border that many Polish voters feel.
\nAll parties in Poland have ruled out sending troops to Ukraine.
\nAlthough real executive power lies with the government, the Polish president has veto powers, meaning he can stymie the government\u2019s agenda. The head of state can also propose laws.
\nNawrocki signed a declaration saying he would not ratify Ukraine\u2019s accession to NATO, as it could result in the alliance being drawn into a conflict with Russia, a move that was sharply criticized by Kyiv\u2019s ambassador to Warsaw and which marked a departure from previous Polish policy under both PiS and KO.
\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky congratulated Nawrocki on Monday and said he looked forward to future \u201cfruitful cooperation\u201d with Poland.
\nBut elsewhere in Ukraine, the mood was less positive.
\n\u201cThe choice of the Poles will most likely complicate the dialogue within the EU and our European integration,\u201d Ukrainian lawmaker Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze was quoted as saying by Interfax-Ukraine.
\nA European diplomat based in Warsaw said that while policy on Ukraine\u2019s future in the EU and NATO would continue to be set by Tusk\u2019s government, Nawrocki could create \u201ca shift in tone that\u2019s not going to be helpful.\u201d
\nIn his role as head of Poland\u2019s Institute of National Remembrance, Nawrocki has been a harsh critic of what he said was Ukraine\u2019s reluctance to exhume the remains of Polish victims killed by Ukrainian nationalists during World War Two.
\nEuroskeptic politicians
\nNawrocki\u2019s campaign echoed the language of other euroskeptic politicians in central Europe, lambasting a perceived over-reach of Brussels into areas that they consider should be the domain of individual countries.
\n\u201cYes, we want a common market, we want development, we want to be a strong voice in the European Union, but we do not want our freedom in the entire scope of social life to be decided by the Brussels elites,\u201d Nawrocki told a campaign rally in March.
\nThe election of Tusk, a former European Council president, as prime minister in 2023 catapulted Poland back to the heart of European decision-making.
\nHe succeeded in unblocking billions in EU funds that had been held back over rule-of-law concerns, even as critics said Warsaw had not actually implemented the necessary court reforms as a result of PiS-ally President Andrzej Duda\u2019s veto.
\n\u201cOf course it (the election result) will mean a lot to the prime minister of Poland, who now instead of being a very strong force in the EU will be more marginalized,\u201d said a second European diplomat.
\nHungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, himself facing a tough election battle in 2026, hailed Nawrocki\u2019s \u201cfantastic victory\u201d on Monday.
\n\u201cThis is definitely emboldening for… all pro-Trumpist or pro-MAGA euroskeptics,\u201d said Botond Feledy, a geopolitical analyst at Red Snow Consulting, adding that in Hungary it could add strength to Orban\u2019s argument that protecting national identity is more important than EU money.
\nWith the \u2018co-habitation\u2019 of a government and president from different political camps looking likely to continue at least until parliamentary elections in 2027, a third diplomat said that they hoped \u201cthey will not be spending more energy on fighting each other than they will… (on) Poland\u2019s leadership in Europe.\u201d
\nStanley Bill, Professor of Polish Studies at the University of Cambridge said that Tusk\u2019s pro-European government would set foreign policy, but that if Nawrocki uses \u201can even more aggressive rhetoric against the European Union than Duda has… that\u2019s clearly going to create a greater impression of chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WARSAW: The victory of nationalist Karol Nawrocki in Poland\u2019s presidential election looks set to strain relations with Ukraine and embolden Donald Trump-inspired conservatives in central Europe, analysts and diplomats said on Monday. Nawrocki won a knife-edge vote that pitted him against Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, who was supported by the ruling centrists Civic Coalition (KO), …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":81963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81948"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81964,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81948\/revisions\/81964"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}