Category Archives: Poland

Brussels launches legal action over Polish rulings against EU law

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European Commission says it has ‘serious concerns’ about challenges by Warsaw’s constitutional tribunal

The European Commission has begun legal action against Poland over rulings by the country’s constitutional court that challenged the supremacy of EU law, in an escalation of the long-running battle between Brussels and Warsaw.

The EU executive said it had “serious concerns” about the Polish constitutional tribunal and its recent case law, citing rulings where the court had challenged the primacy of EU law.

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‘We need free speech’: protests erupt across Poland over controversial media bill

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The bill, yet to be signed into law, would tighten rules around foreign ownership of media

Poles have staged nationwide protests including a thousands-strong rally outside the presidential palace to demand the head of state veto a law they say would limit media freedoms in the European Union’s largest eastern member.

Unexpectedly rushed through parliament on Friday, the legislation would tighten rules around foreign ownership of media, specifically affecting the ability of news channel TVN24, owned by US media company Discovery Inc, to operate.

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Poland angers US by rushing through media law amid concerns over press freedom

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US ‘deeply troubled’ by the bill, which tightens foreign ownership rules, arguing it will weaken press freedom

Poland’s parliament passed a media bill that detractors say aims to silence a news channel critical of the government, in an unexpected move that will stoke concern over media freedom and reopen a diplomatic dispute with the US.

Critics say the legislation will affect the ability of news channel TVN24, owned by US media company Discovery Inc, to operate because it tightens the rules around foreign ownership of media in Poland.

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Helping refugees starving in Poland’s icy border forests is illegal – but it’s not the real crime | Anna Alboth

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The asylum seekers on the Poland-Belarus border are not aggressors: they are desperate pawns in a disgusting political struggle

One thought is a constant in my head: “I have kids at home, I cannot go to jail, I cannot go to jail.” The politics are beyond my reach or that of the victims on the Poland-Belarus border. It involves outgoing German chancellor, Angela Merkel, getting through to Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus. It’s ironic that this border has more than 50 media crews gathered, yet Poland is the only place in the EU where journalists cannot freely report.

Meanwhile, the harsh north European winter is closing in and my fingers are freezing in the dark snowy nights.

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Fortress Europe: the millions spent on military-grade tech to deter refugees

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We map out the rising number of high-tech surveillance and deterrent systems facing asylum seekers along EU borders

From military-grade drones to sensor systems and experimental technology, the EU and its members have spent hundreds of millions of euros over the past decade on technologies to track down and keep at bay the refugees on its borders.

Poland’s border with Belarus is becoming the latest frontline for this technology, with the country approving last month a €350m (£300m) wall with advanced cameras and motion sensors.

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Lives lost at Europe’s borders and Afghan MPs in exile: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to Manila

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Poland plans to set up register of pregnancies to report miscarriages

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Proposed register would come into effect in January, a year after near-total ban on abortion

Poland is planning to introduce a centralised register of pregnancies that would oblige doctors to report all pregnancies and miscarriages to the government.

The proposed register would come into effect in January 2022, a year after Poland introduced a near-total ban on abortion.

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ECJ adviser backs rule-of-law measure in blow to Poland and Hungary

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Court advised to dismiss challenge against law that lets EU block funds to states that curb judicial independence

EU authorities can cut funds to member states that are corrupt and curb independent courts, a senior adviser to the bloc’s top court has said.

In a setback for the nationalist governments of Poland and Hungary, a European court of justice senior lawyer said a law linking EU funds to respect for the rule of law was legally sound.

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Lawyers turn to romcoms in fight for rule of law in Poland

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Instead of drafting legal papers, award-winning group make short films intended to explain assault on judiciary

It was a summer day in 2017 when Sylwia Gregorczyk-Abram, a 34-year-old lawyer, heard a crazy idea.

She had been messaged by a legal acquaintance, Michał Wawrykiewicz, who like her was worried about changes that Poland’s nationalist government was introducing to the judicial system. He wondered how they could convince people that the independence of the judiciary was not some abstract nicety but the firm ground underpinning democracy.

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Pandemic hits mental health of women and young people hardest, survey finds

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Survey also finds adults aged 18-24 and women more concerned about personal finances than other groups

Young people and women have taken the hardest psychological and financial hit from the pandemic, a YouGov survey has found – but few people anywhere are considering changing their lives as a result of it.

The annual YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project found that in many of the 27 countries surveyed, young people were consistently more likely than their elders to feel the Covid crisis had made their financial and mental health concerns worse.

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People used as ‘living shields’ in migration crisis, says Polish PM – video

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The Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, says people from the Middle East are being used as 'living shields' as his country faces a 'new type of war', in reference to the migration crisis on its border with Belarus.

Critics in the west have accused Belarus of artificially creating the crisis by bringing in people – mostly from the Middle East – and taking them to the border with promises of an easy crossing into the EU

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Migrant caravan and Qatar’s tarnished World Cup: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Pakistan to Poland

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Lukashenko says Belarusian troops may have helped refugees reach Europe

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Leader acknowledges it was ‘absolutely possible’ his army had a part in creating migrant crisis at Polish border

The Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, has acknowledged that his troops probably helped Middle Eastern asylum seekers cross into Europe, in the clearest admission yet that he engineered the new migrant crisis on the border with the EU.

In an interview with the BBC at his presidential palace in Minsk, he said it was “absolutely possible” that his troops helped migrants across the frontier into Poland.

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One-year-old Syrian child dies in forest on Poland-Belarus border

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Boy is youngest known victim of crisis as medical workers say family was living in forest for a month

A one-year-old child from Syria has died in a forest in Poland near the border with Belarus, according to Polish medical workers, becoming the youngest known victim of the crisis on the eastern edge of the European Union.

Thousands of people attempting to reach the EU are still stranded in freezing conditions, amid a standoff between the bloc and Belarus, which has been accused of deliberately creating the crisis by flying in people from the Middle East and facilitating their travel to the border.

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Support for populist sentiment falls across Europe, survey finds

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YouGov/Guardian poll finds ‘clear pattern of decreasing support for populism’ in European countries

Support for populist sentiment in Europe has fallen sharply over the past three years, according to a major YouGov survey, with markedly fewer people agreeing with key statements designed to measure it.

The YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project’s annual populism tracker, produced with the Guardian, found populist beliefs in broadly sustained decline in 10 European countries, prompting its authors to suggest the wider electoral appeal of some may have peaked.

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Lukashenko has got the ear of the EU at last – but it won’t help him

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The Belarusian leader may have won phone talks with Angela Merkel but Europe remains united against him

As migrants camped out in the woods prepared for another night of sub-zero temperatures, the Estonian foreign minister, Eva-Maria Liimets, on Tuesday revealed to an evening news programme the gist of what Alexander Lukashenko demanded of Angela Merkel in the first call between a European leader and Belarus’s dictator in more than a year.

“He wants the sanctions to be halted, [and] to be recognised as head of state so he can continue,” she said he told Merkel.

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Belarusian border crisis could last for months, says Polish minister

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Warning comes as police fire teargas and deploy water cannon against people trying to cross into Poland

Poland’s defence minister has said the crisis on the Belarusian border could last for months, as Alexander Lukashenko claimed he had agreed to direct talks with the European Union on solving the crisis.

The agreement was reported by Belarusian state media, which said that Lukashenko and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, spoke on Wednesday for the second time this week.

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Polish police fire teargas at people trying to cross from Belarus

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Footage also shows water cannon being used as dozens of men approach border fence throwing rocks

Polish riot police on the country’s border with Belarus have fired water cannon and teargas at people forcibly attempting to cross into the European Union.

The clashes come a day after EU governments approved sanctions against the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, for allegedly engineering the crisis by allowing thousands of asylum-seekers from the Middle East to travel through Belarus to the border with Poland.

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Poland-Belarus border crisis: water cannon and teargas fired at migrants – video report

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Polish riot police on the country’s border with Belarus have fired water cannon and teargas at people forcibly attempting to cross into the European Union. Dozens of men threw rocks and approached a fence near the border crossing at the Polish town of Kuźnica. The clashes come a day after EU governments approved sanctions against the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, for allegedly engineering the crisis by allowing thousands of asylum seekers from the Middle East to travel through Belarus to the border with Poland

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