Poland ... Good summary of what the election will likely mean for the EU (Translated from German)
Election in Poland: What are the consequences for Germany and the EU?
Poland on the verge of a change of government
The end of the Ice Age
From Florian Schmidt
16.10.2023 - 12:26 o'clock
Reading time: 4 mins
Poland has voted – and according to forecasts, it will vote for a change of government. t-online explains what the Polish election means for Germany and for Europe.
If the election forecasts are correct, the matter is clear: the Poles want a new government. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki's national-conservative ruling party PiS has lost its absolute majority in parliament, and now the liberal-conservative opposition led by former EU Council President Donald Tusk could take power.
The official final result will not be known until Tuesday. t-online explains in advance what consequences the predicted election result will have for Poland, which for Germany and which for the EU.
What does this mean for Poland?
The approximately 38 million Poles can prepare for a change of power. The PiS party won the election, winning 36.6 percent of the vote. However, it fell short of its previous government majority in parliament. According to forecasts, PiS will only win 198 seats, after winning 235 seats in 2019 and thus being able to govern on its own. The majority is 231 of the 460 seats.
This, in turn, could be achieved by Donald Tusk's opposition Civic Coalition (KO) if it forms a coalition with two other partners. According to forecasts, the KO would win 161 seats. Together with the Christian-conservative Third Way (13.5 percent) and the left-wing alliance Lewica (8.6 percent), the three-party alliance would have 248 seats in parliament – a majority.
Opposition leader Donald Tusk therefore saw himself as the winner in the evening: "I have never been so happy about second place. Poland has won, democracy has won, this is the end of the PiS government," he said on election night. PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said they were waiting for the further course of events. For the time being, however, his party, as the strongest force, has the right to invite to coalition talks.
Poland is divided
A change of government would have massive consequences for Poland. "If Donald Tusk succeeds in forming a new government, it will be tantamount to a 180-degree turn for the country, both in European and domestic policy," David Gregosz, head of the Warsaw office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, told t-online.
"For Poland, a new government presumably under Donald Tusk would mean that the country would abandon the illiberal course of the PiS party," the expert said. "But this is a Herculean task, it can't be done within six months, it will take time."
Above all, Tusk is likely to quickly withdraw the controversial judicial reform, which restricts the independence of the courts, and a possible new coalition is also likely to assess socio-political issues such as the restrictive abortion ban differently.
"In the meantime, it remains to be seen how much the conservative media, which are very close to the PiS, will behave now," said Gregosz. "They continue to have a very large impact on the population. It is also important that the PiS remains an important political actor with a high level of popular support."
At the same time, the election shows how divided Poland is. In this parliamentary election, too, the trend towards a clear East-West division of the will of the electorate continues: according to the forecast, the Liberal Conservatives will be able to win over the regions in the west of the country. In an arc from Pomerania to Silesia and along the German-Polish border, the KO scores. The big cities are also their strongholds. PiS, on the other hand, is ahead in rural areas and generally in the east.
What would be the consequences of a change of government for Germany?
Germany played a major role in the Polish election campaign, but not a good one. In particular, the PiS party led by Prime Minister Morawiecki and party leader Kaczynski stirred up anti-German sentiment among the population. Again and again, they claimed that the fate of their country was being influenced too much not only from Brussels, but also from Berlin – they repeatedly defamed their opponent Donald Tusk as an agent of German interests. |
