Two false dispatches reporting that Poland was calling up 200,000 for military service and sending them to Ukraine appeared on the website of the Polish Press Agency (PAP) on Friday afternoon. Senior officials, including Prime Minister Donald Tusk, have blamed the incident on Russian hackers. The fake news story was published twice – at 2.00 p.m. and 2.20 p.m local time – and was quickly withdrawn by the state-owned PAP each time. Its first three sentences read: “On 1 July 2024, partial military mobilisation will be announced in Poland. Two hundred thousand Polish citizens, both former mi ..read more

By Agata Pyka and Lena Bäunker Poland plans to develop a deepwater container terminal within a protected nature reserve in Świnoujście on the Baltic coast. Proponents point to potential economic gains but critics, both locally and in Germany, have raised concerns over the environmental impact and whether local infrastructure can handle the cargo. On the right bank of the Świna river, house walls are stained grey by dust and coal emissions from the nearby port and liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility. Train tracks cut through deforested patches and wild boar scavenge for food amid roadside litt ..read more

Agata Pyka (text also available in English here) W ostatnich tygodniach aktywiści działający na rzecz przerywania ciąży oraz media w Polsce rozpowszechniały ważną informację dla polskich kobiet. Według nich, holenderski parlament zatwierdził nowe prawo zezwalające polskim obywatelkom na e-wizyty u holenderskich lekarzy w celu otrzymania recept na tabletki aborcyjne, które następnie miałyby zostać wysłane pocztą do Polski. Notes from Poland zwróciło się do holenderskiego ministerstwa zdrowia i przedstawicielki parlamentu, żeby zweryfikować tę informację.   View this post on Instagram &nb ..read more

By Agata Pyka (tekst dostępny również w języku polskim) In recent weeks, Polish abortion activists and many media outlets have circulated what seemed to be important news for Polish women. They reported that the Dutch parliament has approved a new law allowing Polish citizens to have online consultations with Dutch doctors in order to receive prescriptions for abortion medication that can then be sent by post to Poland. However, our fact-check with the Dutch health ministry and parliament debunks these claims.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Aborcyjn ..read more

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has upheld the decision by the European Commission to levy €68.5 million in fines imposed on Poland for failing to comply with an CJEU order to suspend operations at the Turów coal mine. In doing so, the court rejected a complaint filed by the former Polish government, which argued that the commission had acted unlawfully in taking the money after Poland had reached a settlement with the Czech Republic that ended the dispute over the mine. #EUGeneralCourt maintains #Poland's obligation to pay the daily fine imposed in the case concerning the ..read more

Poland has announced the reintroduction of an exclusion zone on parts of its border with Belarus following the stabbing of a soldier by a migrant seeking to cross into Poland. Unauthorised people will banned from entering designated areas along the border. The decision, announced by Prime Minister Donald Tusk during a visit to the border on Wednesday, marks a return to measures introduced by the former Law and Justice (PiS) government in 2021, at the onset of the migration crisis, and lifted the following year, after the completion of a new border wall. “We came here today to say that in every ..read more

The European Commission has officially ended the rule-of-law proceedings, known as Article 7, that it launched against Poland in December 2017 due to concerns over the judicial reforms of the former Law and Justice (PiS) government. “The commission considers that there is no longer a clear risk of a serious breach of the rule of law in Poland,” it announced in a statement today, It noted that the new Polish government, which replaced PiS in December, has “launched a series of measures to address the concerns on independence of the justice system, has recognised the primacy of EU law and i ..read more

President Andrzej Duda has vetoed a law that would have made Silesian – which is spoken in the historical area of Silesia in southwest Poland – a recognised regional language. In his justification, Duda argued that Silesian is a dialect of Polish, rather than a language in itself, and also cited national security concerns. The president’s decision, which had been widely expected, was criticised by figures from the ruling coalition, whose parliamentary majority had approved the law in April. Prezydent RP @AndrzejDuda, na podstawie art. 122 ust. 5 Konstytucji Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z dnia 2 ..read more

Poland has detained and charged three men – two of them Belarusian and one a Polish citizen – on suspicion of carrying out acts of sabotage, in particular arson, on behalf of Russia. Separately today, a Ukrainian national was indicted on suspicion of trying to incite espionage on behalf of a foreign intelligence agency by offering a Polish citizen €15,000 to take photographs of military equipment being transported to Ukraine. Komunikat z działań funkcjonariusz Agencji Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego w ramach śledztwa dotyczącego zorganizowanej grupy przestępczej, mającej za zadanie dokonywanie ak ..read more

Poland’s justice ministry has released an interactive map showing how, under the previous government, money from a fund intended to support victims of crime was used to apparently boost the election campaigns of candidates from the party that controlled the ministry. It shows that nearly 90% of the money in question went to districts in which candidates from the Sovereign Poland (Suwerenna Polska) party were running. They received an average of 7.7 million zloty (1.8 million) each in funding compared to an average of 1.5 million for districts in which there were no such candidates. The data ad ..read more