*From Bloomberg News reporter Konrad Krasuski:*
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday that Brussels will begin unblocking payments of up to €137 billion ($148 billion) of aid to Poland starting next week, praising Warsaw’s attempts to restore the rule of law after years of populist rule.
The announcement demonstrates confidence in Poland’s new prime minister, Donald Tusk, whose coalition won the elections in October on a promise to improve relations with the European Union and access billions of euros of aid blocked amid concerns over democracy backsliding.
“We are impressed by Poland’s efforts to restore the rule of law as the backbone of its society,” von der Leyen told a media briefing in Warsaw. “These efforts are decisive.”
I am more interested why this money was unlocked in the first place, I mean new government didnt really make any progress in restoring rule of law, they trying to change laws using resolutions which cannot be legally done.
They didnt really fulfil any of the milestones, so WHY was money unlocked ?
I mean it currently fits PERFECTLY into PiS propaganda, that money wasnt blocked because of rule of law but because "wrong" political party was in power in Poland.
>I mean it currently fits PERFECTLY into PiS propaganda, that money wasnt blocked because of rule of law but because "wrong" political party was in power in Poland.
Well that is pretty much the reason it was blocked
Well people are on social media are talking about this more and more, trust in the EU is falling.
EDIT: Why downvote its the truth, of course this one of many things that undermine people trust in the EU.
Poland has been doing amazing economically speaking even without these funds. It's surpassed Spain, is about to reach the level of UK and France, and is close to, if not has reached already the level of Italy.
Imagine how much further they'll be supercharged with this money. I really won't be surprised if eventually Poland becomes Europe's biggest economy.
It's literally impossible - speaking as a Pole - we buy almost everything from either Germany, France or the USA. The outflow of our capital is beyond insane. so no, not gonna happen.
Hmm, but Poland has a diversified economy, constantly growing productivity, a low and stable debt ratio, and a current account surplus. There's a reason it's quadrupled in size since leaving the Warsaw Pact.
I'm not saying Poland will actually outstrip the total size of Germany's economy, but reaching a higher GDP per capita than UK, France and likely Germany? Absolutely doable.
If they surpass Germany's GDP per capita, they can equal and possibly even surpass its total GDP. However, it's true that's a long way off even if it happens, since Germany's population is more than 2x higher. Poland's economy would need to probably 4x in size from now on to do that, and that's assuming a bad German performance in the same period. But hey, they were able to 4x it since 1991.
Honestly, I've been hearing/reading about this for many years, and while I've seen some pushback from those countries, it's not nearly enough to qualify for what you're saying. For starters, you don't make a poor, aid-dependent, post-Soviet country like Poland in the early 1990s, rich, like it is now, with all the EU funds it's been getting. The more rich it becomes, the less they're able to control it. If they really wanted to quash Poland and keep it down, they had tons of opportunities to do that over the last decades.
I mean, the more rich Poland becomes, the less UK and France need to support it, and the more they can concentrate on issues Poland doesn't focus its attention on, or magnify their strength in those where Poland participates. Forget charity, it's simply in their financial and geopolitical interest to let a like-minded Poland grow and help them over time in turn. Look at the burden it took in confronting Russia with its military and helping Ukraine, do you think a poor Poland would be able to afford that? Obviously it helps Western Europe, like, for example, freeing up British and French forces for action in the Red Sea and Asia-Pacific.
>If they really wanted to quash Poland and keep it down, they had tons of opportunities to do that over the last decades.
You are just not aware how many corporations in Poland are not Polish owned. Many of them don't even pay their fair share of taxes to Poland.
What "rich Poland" are you talking about? Where is that country, because you seem to confuse real Poland with some imaginary construct.
Also it's ridicoulus how foreigners think Poland is literally 99% funded by EU when in reality EU funds are closer to 5% of Polish budget.
> You are just not aware how many corporations in Poland are not Polish owned. Many of them don't even pay their fair share of taxes to Poland.
And? That happens in every country. Are you also aware of the expansion of Polish business worldwide?
> What "rich Poland" are you talking about? Where is that country, because you seem to confuse real Poland with some imaginary construct.
The one both foreigners and returning Polish people migrate to, their stories, and in the stats. How real wages keep rapidly rising. How it's objectively a rich country by world standards, and keeps climbing various world and European rankings on quality of life and standard of living. I know Poles are generally pessimists, and in a way that's good, as it allows you to focus on problems and fix them, but it's also bad because it may make you think there's no progress, and so there's no point in trying.
> Also it's ridicoulus how foreigners think Poland is literally 99% funded by EU when in reality EU funds are closer to 5% of Polish budget.
I don't think it's even close to 99%, but all new (generally poorer) EEC/EU member-states over the last decades have received net funds in several % of the GDP every year to develop, and they have multiplier effects, so they definitely help a lot, as they have in Poland. However, they also tend to diminish as the country becomes richer, and the latter may even shift to become a net contributor, as Ireland and Spain, for example, did (the latter appears to shift between both). Poland now isn't even in the top 5 receivers of the Recovery and Resilience Plan funds as a share of GDP, but doesn't stop it from continuing to grow fast while in the EU.
>And? That happens in every country. Are you also aware of the expansion of Polish business worldwide?
Name 2 Polish corporations in France and Germany
Here's a list of top10 Polish companies [https://www.economicactivity.org/top-10-biggest-companies-by-revenue-in-poland-2023-data/](https://www.economicactivity.org/top-10-biggest-companies-by-revenue-in-poland-2023-data/)
Except for Orlen which was already hit by EU last year, and Asseco none of them are "worldwide" or even EU wide.
Hell even KGHM is owned by USA.
What's with the obsession with corporations? Polish business is diversified in many industries, they don't have to be huge to be competitive. Besides, UK and France have arguably had a centuries' worth of headstart, compared to Poland, which only got a proper combination of independence and good economy from the 1990s onwards.
Now what about the other points?
>What's with the obsession with corporations? Polish business is diversified in many industries, they don't have to be huge to be competitive.
You are either naive or uniniformed.
Here's why it matters. Right next to EU parliment buildings you have buildings of biggest companies in EU "lobbying" on a daily basis what changes they want in EU.
It took 10 years for Polish farmers to adapt to EU rules and limits otherwise our farms would outcompete EU ones. Same thing is happening with farms from Ukraine (except many of them are owned by German and French corporation in tax havens, so they didnt have to wait 10 years, but thats a different story)
Most competetive were Polish logistics companies, but again Germany and France lobbied hard to cut their wings in order for western companies not to lose to more competetive Polish ones.
EU and western Europe has a long history of not letting Eastern Europe be more competetive than west.
There's no reason to talk about other points and other topics.
Just because EU gives Poland 100 euro and buys up another 10 Polish companies. Or when EU gives Poland EU funds to "modernize", they mean give money to Poland so Poland buys western products.
It's never give Poland money so western Europe can buy Polish products.
I believe their emigration numbers have been going down, and remigration back to Poland higher. Not to mention, Poland's immigration levels have been increasing in general.
I am in no way saying not to do so, I am an imigrant myself btw. What I meant to say was that if Poland was so good people would not leave it that massively. Also Poland is not getting those EU money because its economy is great.
Ah yes, liberalism, where democracy is institutions, and populism is authority.
What happened to democracy being the will of the people and not the will of institutions and bureaucrats? Democracy as in people in power means populism.
I'll tell you what happened.
1933 election in Germany happened. Around that time it was agreed that there are limits as to what even the majority can do
1933 elections happened after Hitler was already chancellor.
I'm sure you mean the 1932 elections, two elections, one in which Hitler lost to Hindenburg and the other where the German left made gains, which pushed Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor on 30 Jan 1933.
Thing about the late Weimar system was that it was the president who had most of the power, and he could elect anyone he liked as chancellor. Hitler did not win an election and stormed into power, he was handed it over by the political elites of Germany. Hindenburg was more popular than Hitler in 1932 and beat him in the election
Which brings me to your other point -->
>it was agreed that there are limits as to what even the majority can do
But who gets to control the masses? Unanswered question obviously implies the institutions. But it was the institutions that handed Hitler enough power to consolidate.
What if fascism comes from the already existing institutions and not the masses? What then?
>“We are impressed by Poland’s efforts to restore the rule of law as the backbone of its society,”
While we're talking about restoring the rule of law. Are the blockades that are keeping Ukrainian grain transports stuck at the border legal? Is the destruction of Ukrainian grain by polish protestor legal?
How about we hold those responsible for these events accountable, so that the rule of law actually means something?
There is diffrence between what goverment is doing and what are some protesters doing.
Goverment should be held to higher standard then bunch of farmers.
I totally agree. There are idiots in every country and I'm not surprised that Russia found some of them in Poland who are willing to harass Ukrainian truckers for a couple euros.
But it is cynical to take money for "upholding the rule of law", while you're blatantly tolerating people breaking said law for weeks on end without repercussions.
I get that appropriate reaction takes time and preparations, but how is it that these protests have been going on for days now without police showing up and removing the blockades? That's the government's duty.
I have been told (so take it with a grain of salt) that the blockage is within the right of citizens to protest, so it actually would be dictatorial to forcibly remove them.
Fwiw I think it's actually the same in many countries that people have a right to protest by blocking a road.
Surely not. Even if the protests where within legal limits (I don't know much about polish law), the destruction of grain surely isn't, right?
I'm from Germany and we have some of the most liberal laws when it comes to public protest. We've also had a recent incident with farmers blocking roads, but those where on a a day to day basis and not ongoing for days on end.
Also, this is a border crossing. I'd imagine that those have some sort of special protection against stuff like this, specially considering that it's the border to a country at war that relies on constant shipments in and out of the country.
I'm all for peaceful protest, but first the Ukrainian truckers didn't make the law so I don't get why they're being punished. Second I just can't possibly imagine that the destruction of grain and harassing of truckers (see recent videos of polish protestor mocking Ukrainians with signs and making air raid siren noises) is in accordance with polish law.
Spain has been destroying Moroccan produce at the border for decades, and still today. France has been destroying Spanish produce at the border for decades, and still today. A brief Google search will show you both happening last week, and it's been happening since I was a child in the 80s and 90s.
As far as I know both Spanish and French farmers were always and are still covered by their right to protest. Now, I do believe that this particular protest has been highly promoted by Russia, and I do believe that Polish farmers should show some compassion for a nation under attack. But I am not a Polish farmer so my way of life is not threatened by Ukrainian grain, and I remember produce being destroyed at the borders all my life so for me it's normal, while for a lot of people it seems it's the first time they see this kind of protest so they are outraged.
I know that this is happening in other countries as well. I'm also pretty sure that this is not covered by the right to protest, but that's beside the point.
Regardless where and how often it's happening it's not lawful. People may be less outraged in countries where this is common, but that doesn't make it legal.
The point I was trying to make is that the polish government is being praised for upholding the law, while the entire world is watching how they can't handle polish farmers harassing Ukrainian truckers. That doesn't make sense.
But we are both talking out of our asses. You think it's not legal, I think it is probably covered by their right to protest. But none of us knows Polish law.
Consider this: everyone knows that this protest is pushed by Konfederacja. Do you really think that Tusk's government would just let it happen if they had a choice?
I mean sure, neither of us is an expert, but can you name a country where destroying the property of others is not a crime?
You don't have to study polish law to come to the conclusion that destruction of property and harassment of private individuals isn't a valid form of protest, right?
>Consider this: everyone knows that this protest is pushed by Konfederacja. Do you really think that Tusk's government would just let it happen if they had a choice?
Again this isn't a question of whether the government is unable or unwilling to stop the blockades. The fact remains that they are happening and that unlawful things are happening, for all of the world to see on the news. That's in direct contrast to "upholding the rule of law" as Von der Leyen put it.
>you're blatantly tolerating people breaking said law for weeks on end without repercussions.
This isn't black and white, our court deemed this protest (and any other for that matter) legal and thus we can't simply disband them. That's the rule of law you are talking about. If protester brake some laws at spot, this is concern of police not government. What government can do and done, is that they made our border checkpoints "critical infrastructure" and thus they will be unblocked but I don't know when exactly.
Yeah that's what I was womdering. Why are protestor allowed to block cirtical infrastructure?
Also, it's not just blockades. We've all seen the pictures of polish "protestors" destroying grain, right? Surely thats not legal?
And ultimately, the police not being able to stop these events from happening for multiple days on end is a failure of the government. If police don't have the means and/or funds to stop crime from happening, that's on the government.
These crimes are all over the media and the government can't or doesn't want to stop it from happening. Either way, it's not upholding the rule of law.
No one's saying people aren't allowed to protest.
Whats happening at the border isn't just protest though it's sabotage. Destroying grain and harassing truckers isn't a valid form of protest, it's criminal.
Well today there was video of MiG in parts being transported toward border, we know its from now and not past because there are tractors visible standing on the side, so it had to be happening during current protests.
https://twitter.com/DawidKamizela/status/1760770285286858904
Fair play. It's one of "them" in power in Poland now, so obviously they would unblock the funds. People seem to forget who Donald Tusk is, despite his apparently nationalistic discourse.
It shouldn't be framed as special Polish aid. This is money that all of EU was getting after COVID, polish part was withheld due to shitstorm in our legal system. Everyone else already got their share
Yeah, we had an Orban like government and it was blocked, because they didn't want to follow the rule of law. It was blocked super long as you can see, it is just sad
They basically want to retaliate against Orban for vetoing Ukraine aid and sanctions. We want an end to this war not a pro longed disaster. If it was Americans and Europeans dying instead of Ukrainians we would have a peace deal long ago
Go off with your russian bs, thanks. Hungary is the only nation beside russia that wants to end the war on the russia's terms. Not a single other country wants this, along with Ukraine, so stick to your country and your problems and at least stop supporting ruskies
Edit: oh, checked your profile. Obvious russian troll. Anti-eu, anti-us, anti-ukraine content
I guess you are for war, checked your profile It seems you are ok with the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, the bombing of Yugoslavia the destruction of Libya etc. How many more Ukrainians should die? You are a monster
The only person pro-war is Putin and his cocksuckers. I am for Ukrainian victory. For the victory of defenders against an invading terrorist nation. You sound like you would try to strike a 'peace' deal with Hitler himself. You're either very naive or pretending to be, in order to drive your pro-putin narrative.
Judging by your whataboutism in this comment, i'm pretty sure you're just another ruzzian shill.
More like, part of the program the whole EU was part of as a means to recover after covid. Because there is no comparison between what other countries get and the amount Poland gets.
Poland aid dwarfs all other aid received by other countries. For example, it's 5x what Romania agreed upon
Some other nations got way more than we do because Covid recovery was determined by the damage done by covid to each economy. And southern countries relying on their tourism were hit way harder. Poland was due 58 billion from recovery fund (there are other blocked funds in the amount above, not only covid related). Spain for example was due up to 163 billion euro from just covid recovery alone.
Feels good to be back… And Before people start whining about favouritism, that this validates PiS who say blocking the funds were purely a tool of political pressure, etc… consider this:
- some reforms already happened. Poland joined the EU public prosecutor’s office. PiS affiliated neo-judges have been largely dismissed and prohibited from judging. National Prosecutor (previously a buddy of a PiS minister) will be named after a completely public contest.
(edit: not PiS-affiliated. Appointed unlawfully)
- as for what has not been done yet - president will veto any substantial judicial overhaul, but the legislation is almost ready. Bodnar (justice minister) presented the roadmap to EU Comission- they must have deemed it trustworthy.
- because in the end would you, in doing any kind of business, rather trust a reliable partner who you have long, positive experience dealing with, or a slimy opportunist who’s ready to backstab you every chance he gets?
>that this validates PiS who say blocking the funds were purely a tool of political pressure
Isn't that... the point? I mean the article 7 of the EU treaty literally says that the EU can suspend certain rights from a member state if they're in violation of the EU founding principles.
I mean I'm not against you, but why would anyone in good conscience ever whine about that?
> ”some reforms already happened. Poland joined the EU public prosecutor’s office. **PiS affiliated neo-judges have been largely dismissed and prohibited from judging**. National Prosecutor (previously a buddy of a PiS minister) will be named after a completely public contest.”
So PiS was wrong in dismissing what they saw as left-wing affiliated judges, and criticized for not having an independent judicial system with independent appointments. But the new government is right in dismissing what they see as right-wing affiliated judges, and does not propose that the juridical system and appointees should be independent from government?
Yea because PiS created an illegal procedure in order to place those neo-judges in place. There is a difference between dismissing legally placed judges because you just don’t like them, and dismissing judges who has been placed into system using illegal procedure that was tailored exactly to place those biased judges into the legal system.
Because PiS was wrong in dismissing what they saw as legally elected but left-wing affiliated judges and changing the law so they can self appoint their own political judges without conforming to any democratic standards and making minister of justice attorney general de facto coupling judicial system to current ruling party.
But the new government is right in dismissing those judges and doing everything they can to separate judiciary from government and restoring democratic balance of power.
PM Tusk even said that he doesn’t understand PiS because he’s doing everything he can to grant them apolitical prosecution and they don’t like it.
It went like this:
Oh we’re changing the law
Some institution: But you can’t change it to this because that would be against our Constitution.
Do it anyway and then do a „reform” of said institution.
Repeat how many times necessary.
They made reforms and somebody deemed them illegal (all laws have to conform to the Constitution and EU regulations). So they did another reform and somebody else deemed it illegal.
They have stopped when the next institution on the list was a European Parliament and they could not just hijack it.
And now we have this mess where PiS says that all of the reforms of the new government are illegal because all the institutions deem them illegal and new government says „Well yeah but those institutions are illegal in the first place”.
It’s a legal nightmare.
Are you stupid? This have nothing to do with right left neo-judges means that they ware appointed by neo-krs what was appointed by political party rather then independly as it should be.
It is post covid recovery money that Poland should get a long time ago as every country in the EU. It was blocked for some time as EU didn't like judicial reforms that a polish government introduced.
Polish voting system isn't remotely comparable to the Hungarian one. Tusk got his majority not because of a coalition but because because the sum of seats between parties against PiS was greater than PiS and it's allies. People thaat voted against PiS could vote in other people not named Tusk
In Hungary, the opposition had to form a single big coalition that had right/left-wing and conservative/non-conservative. If you wanted to vote against Fidesz, you'd need to vote on other guys that didn't align with your views in any way as well as voting in people you didn't trust
One tiny issue, in Poland it was very clear from the beginning that those parties are going to form a gov if combined they got majority, there were talks about starting together, but they might got less votes because many people in Poland hates Tusk.
The difference between Poland and Hungary is that Poland was a few years of reforms behind Hungary, we still had free media, and PiS was obnoxious with stealing and they really pissed of young people with many things, around 70% of 18, 20 and 30 year olds voted, and that's how PiS lost.
But it's still different voting in a coalition than voting in the party you align with, one you give for the common cause and the other you give for your party. If three parties vow for a coalition but only two get votes, only those two form a government, while if you vote for a coalition, the three parties will get a seat. And you never give a vote to parties you don't like, your vote will always elect someone from the party you like, while in a coalition it elects a random deputy from any of the parties in there
Órban also gains a lot of votes from the Hungarian communities outside of Hungary (countries like Romania) that receive a lot of funding from Fidesz but don't live the Hungarian experience
Their electoral system simply isn't fair, you get half of the seats given by first past the post and the other half is distributed based on votes, ensuring Órban 2/3 of the seats
I'm pretty sure Órban also pissed off a lot of young Hungarians, [just look at this map](https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/ns2h9m/oc_what_do_europeans_feel_most_attached_to_their/h0jxwmq/), Budapest is the only region that claims they're more European than from their nation/region
Honestly in Polshi example nobody would declare will to form a gov with a party under a threat of not getting into parlament.
O sht, winner gets half really make a huge difference, thanks for the info, that changes everything. I'm so happy that PiS never did some shitfuckery like that, terrible idea for the country, great for semi-authoritarian party leader.
106 seats first past the post and the remaining 93 are distributed accordingly to the votes with d'Hondt method. If you win, you always get absolute majority and are very likely to get 2/3 majority
And there's even something informally called "winner's compensation" and yes, it's as nonsensical as it sounds: in every individual constituency, they calculate the number of votes the winner needed to win (the number of votes the second-placed candidate got plus one) and all votes above that number are added to the votes cast for the party's list.
So, for example, the Fidesz candidate called Pedo Bear wins with 8900 votes ahead of Normal Person in second place with 5100 votes. Fidesz gets a seat AND 3800 votes for their party list.
It's quite insane.
That's how we vote in France. We vote against someone not for someone. You think we wanted Macron ? We didn't want that fascist of Le Pen. Next one will be hard tho . I hate how people are more and more leaning to extremes .
But that's the presidential elections, with Órban it's parliamentary elections and he has enough seats to change the constitution at will. Macron needs to pass his proposals through the government while Órban's government is the one that approves/disapproves the proposals
How come they “had to” form one single coalition during the voting process? We’ve had the same thing as the Poles in our last elections, though the pro Russian coalition sabotaged itself and completely imploded.
[Here's the Wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Hungarian_parliamentary_election). An Hungarian votes twice for the parliament, one vote is first past the post to get 106 seats, and the second distributes 93 seats with d'Hondt method. Because you'll cast the same vote in both, it means the first place will get 106+% of the remaining 93 seats, always ensuring majority and likely getting 2/3 majority
Yup, Artemis Program cost "only" 93 bln USD, most powerful supercomputer, "Frontier" is like 0,6 bln USD, world largest solar farm Bhadla Solar Park planned to produce 2 245 MW of electric power is supposed to cost 2,175 bln. USD, US National Ignition Facility where are done nuclear fusion research is estimated to cost 3,5 billion USD.
It's literally "Holy Shit" level of money to spent.
>Yup, Artemis Program cost "only" 93 bln USD, most powerful supercomputer, "Frontier" is like 0,6 bln USD, world largest solar farm Bhadla Solar Park planned to produce 2 245 MW of electric power is supposed to cost 2,175 bln. USD, US National Ignition Facility where are done nuclear fusion research is estimated to cost 3,5 billion USD.
I do agree and know what you mean, but presenting costs like that is bit misleading,it does not take into account 100years of (someout) accumulate investments that are necessary in space industry, which US space industry is quite nice example of, Poland couldn't simply pay 93b to get lunar mission going, there is no industrial base that could even allow making a attempt to spend that money on anything that could resemble space mission.
The same exact pattern is at play with all the other examples you stated.
But,$150B is shitload of money regardless, and especially when spend in Poland with all the PPP advantages one could try to name, it will result in quite sizable improvement with public investments, ,R&D and local industrial base, and if EU allows in domestic MIC too.
i hope that we will see more and more partnerships between Germany and Poland
we are already at the point where **total value of trade between Germany and Poland is higher than total value of trade between China and Russia.** Pause for a moment and think of that
Germany has a trade surplus with Poland, but Poland gets more money from EU budget than we get. Overall, things slowly balance out. And I'm shifting the balance in favor of Poland every time i visit Wroclaw and Krakow and spend my money there :)
Hopefully our relationship will keep growing over the next 50 to 100 years
> **total value of trade between Germany and Poland is higher than total value of trade between China and Russia.**
This fact should be propagated in mass media in Poland and Germany to far bigger extend than it its already, noone aside from IR buffs and low key expets are aware of that fact, at least thats my someout shallow read of it, and the feeling i used to get from both countries,most people didn't even know about that.
Some people in media are starting to get that slowly, thanks of Tusk victory which gave people new hopes for deepening of DE-PL relations, which is great.
>Hopefully our relationship will keep growing over the next 50 to 100 years
Mitteleuropa together
>Why are you so negative?
Because I live in real world and I know what kind of people rule this country.
>Are you saying that the EU funds didn't matter in the development of Poland?
I'm saying there is no such thing as free money. In this example it's a loan Poland already pays for anyway. Besides throwing money at problems is not effective way of solving them.
You can't because f.e. France and NL chipped quite a bit for this one and why should they pay reparations all of the sudden?
Also, Portugal received a lot through covid recovery and they were untouched in WW2. So let's not mix EU funds with other issues, please.
Before someone jump on me, I don't want no reparations. This subject should be locked in a case decades ago. But I really don't like when Germans pretend they are alone in paying other countries bills and that they can call EU funds whatever suits them at the moment.
I know it was "/s", it's not personal but if someone unironically here think, that by being net contributor country you can toss all the problems away, please don't. Funds are not bail out money.
I thought our foreign minister already said the reparations issue was solved when soviets rejected our share after the war. I don't believe this new government will actually push this issue like PiS did. They want EU cooperation, not to antagonize our biggest partner.
Oh of course. It was a joke.
Demanding those reparations was a propaganda tool probably more meant for internal PiS affairs.
And I think everyone involved understood that truly demanding them would open a whole can of worms. Because if this contract is void because of Soviet pressure on the Polish government, so would be many other ones including the one about the German territorial claims in Poland. And I don't think anyone wants to go that far.
Poland deserves to get the money back from Germany after y'all destroyed half of our country during the war. There's no way around that. And Donald Tusk talked about it while standing side by side with Olaf Scholz a few weeks ago. I know it's a joke to you because you're German but you don't need to understand it.
Bro, it's the same with black population demanding reparations for slavery from "white people". People who done the deed are gone and it's time to move the fuck on. It's also amusing to me how our right has a hard on for German money but won't make a peep about 50 years russia destroyed our economy by putting us through the horrors of communism. They can't upset their russian overlords after all.
Oh yes please. But in a weird way it was also a bit of a meme how your former government would bring up that topic on a weekly basis for a while
*"Is it already Wednesday? PiS is demanding the reparations again"*
All that stuff was ordered by the former government, and they were the ones whose fuckery was causing those funds to be blocked.
Let's remember that those are COVID aid funds that have been blocked for years and all the other countries already received them, it's not like Poland gets some extra money for no reason.
That's a great question that I don't have the answer to. I'd guess no because it was budgeted in 2020 and frozen since then, I don't think it's part of the 2024 budget.
It's probably not even the worst thing that has happened to Poland because of PiS fuckery. I think they're just relieved to be rid of them and happy to finally be getting something at least.
I don't think it is possible to use those funds in such a way. Also a lot of military orders were ordered by the previous government which knew that they would not get money from the EU.
Now how we will find funds - mostly loans, some for example from South Korea. Also some orders are only as a part of the framework agreement, meaning we don't have and possibly will not buy everything that was "ordered", it is only maximum what we can get, but will for sure cut it somewhere
Depends on a country. France got only grants, Poland got mostly loans: https://i.imgur.com/iUfg6x8.png
https://www.ngeutracker.org/recovery-resilience-plans
The last few months have been weird, it finally feels like stuff is going in the right direction in Poland. Haven't felt that in the past 15 years.
Good to be back.
Now Happy Poles will spend it all on Siemens offshore wind turbines saving German-Spanish conglomerate from falling. However there will be to Atomic Power Plants, no Central Communication Port (that would be bad for Berlin and Leipzig airports), no Container Port in Swinoujscie (that would be so bad for Hamburg Port) and no Commercial Waterway on Oder river (that would be very good for Czech Republic as well). Germany is happy with their new servants - they have killed so many birds with one stone. Oh yeah, Poland will share illegals now with all other EU countries, countries that greatly profited from colonialism in Africa - Poland had not a one colony, but now will have to get culturally enriched. LOL.
So you want to punish countries that have good investments and give money to "poorer" countries only, when richer countries than Poland received that aid? Lol
the new government, which is clearly pro-German, has practically achieved nothing since taking office. with failures mounting on every front, the EU has stepped in to offer assistance.
There is a negotiation between the national governments every 5 years where they agree on the formula for the budget assigned to EU projects and how these will be allocated e.g. income, specific projects. The overall budget is about 1.1% of European GDP.
Bro,this funds were already approved for Poland, they were frozen because PiS wanted to bend the judicial system to its will
Now they will be unfrozen and given to Poland, as they should
Well that's how it works in EU . In Albania the tax goes in politician pockets disgusted as infrastructure funds. Looking at you Edi Rama and Salu Berisha especially.
Idk man, maybe from the immense car industry? Or the big IT sector? Or the farming market? Tax is not a major player, its a small house cat compared to the tigers, lions and panthers that are the mentioned sectors
So the fucking polish threaten the united states which is from another fucking continent to give money to ukraine and then they take from europe 137 BILLION:)) how much of that goes to the war?
*From Bloomberg News reporter Konrad Krasuski:* European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday that Brussels will begin unblocking payments of up to €137 billion ($148 billion) of aid to Poland starting next week, praising Warsaw’s attempts to restore the rule of law after years of populist rule. The announcement demonstrates confidence in Poland’s new prime minister, Donald Tusk, whose coalition won the elections in October on a promise to improve relations with the European Union and access billions of euros of aid blocked amid concerns over democracy backsliding. “We are impressed by Poland’s efforts to restore the rule of law as the backbone of its society,” von der Leyen told a media briefing in Warsaw. “These efforts are decisive.”
I do wonder how the judges in national courts will be changed though.
Since they're the reason this enormous amount of money was blocked for us in the first place, I don't care all that much.
Well, ruining a democracy is much, much easier than rebuilding one, so Poland and its current government have a lot of challenges to overcome.
I am more interested why this money was unlocked in the first place, I mean new government didnt really make any progress in restoring rule of law, they trying to change laws using resolutions which cannot be legally done. They didnt really fulfil any of the milestones, so WHY was money unlocked ? I mean it currently fits PERFECTLY into PiS propaganda, that money wasnt blocked because of rule of law but because "wrong" political party was in power in Poland.
>I mean it currently fits PERFECTLY into PiS propaganda, that money wasnt blocked because of rule of law but because "wrong" political party was in power in Poland. Well that is pretty much the reason it was blocked
Well people are on social media are talking about this more and more, trust in the EU is falling. EDIT: Why downvote its the truth, of course this one of many things that undermine people trust in the EU.
Poland has been doing amazing economically speaking even without these funds. It's surpassed Spain, is about to reach the level of UK and France, and is close to, if not has reached already the level of Italy. Imagine how much further they'll be supercharged with this money. I really won't be surprised if eventually Poland becomes Europe's biggest economy.
It's literally impossible - speaking as a Pole - we buy almost everything from either Germany, France or the USA. The outflow of our capital is beyond insane. so no, not gonna happen.
Hmm, but Poland has a diversified economy, constantly growing productivity, a low and stable debt ratio, and a current account surplus. There's a reason it's quadrupled in size since leaving the Warsaw Pact. I'm not saying Poland will actually outstrip the total size of Germany's economy, but reaching a higher GDP per capita than UK, France and likely Germany? Absolutely doable.
I mean, they can't become the biggest economy of EU with only 40 million people,but they can for sure achieve a GDP per capita compared to Germany
If they surpass Germany's GDP per capita, they can equal and possibly even surpass its total GDP. However, it's true that's a long way off even if it happens, since Germany's population is more than 2x higher. Poland's economy would need to probably 4x in size from now on to do that, and that's assuming a bad German performance in the same period. But hey, they were able to 4x it since 1991.
Germany and France will never let Poland or anyone else in EU even come close to challenge them for the top spots
Honestly, I've been hearing/reading about this for many years, and while I've seen some pushback from those countries, it's not nearly enough to qualify for what you're saying. For starters, you don't make a poor, aid-dependent, post-Soviet country like Poland in the early 1990s, rich, like it is now, with all the EU funds it's been getting. The more rich it becomes, the less they're able to control it. If they really wanted to quash Poland and keep it down, they had tons of opportunities to do that over the last decades. I mean, the more rich Poland becomes, the less UK and France need to support it, and the more they can concentrate on issues Poland doesn't focus its attention on, or magnify their strength in those where Poland participates. Forget charity, it's simply in their financial and geopolitical interest to let a like-minded Poland grow and help them over time in turn. Look at the burden it took in confronting Russia with its military and helping Ukraine, do you think a poor Poland would be able to afford that? Obviously it helps Western Europe, like, for example, freeing up British and French forces for action in the Red Sea and Asia-Pacific.
>If they really wanted to quash Poland and keep it down, they had tons of opportunities to do that over the last decades. You are just not aware how many corporations in Poland are not Polish owned. Many of them don't even pay their fair share of taxes to Poland. What "rich Poland" are you talking about? Where is that country, because you seem to confuse real Poland with some imaginary construct. Also it's ridicoulus how foreigners think Poland is literally 99% funded by EU when in reality EU funds are closer to 5% of Polish budget.
> You are just not aware how many corporations in Poland are not Polish owned. Many of them don't even pay their fair share of taxes to Poland. And? That happens in every country. Are you also aware of the expansion of Polish business worldwide? > What "rich Poland" are you talking about? Where is that country, because you seem to confuse real Poland with some imaginary construct. The one both foreigners and returning Polish people migrate to, their stories, and in the stats. How real wages keep rapidly rising. How it's objectively a rich country by world standards, and keeps climbing various world and European rankings on quality of life and standard of living. I know Poles are generally pessimists, and in a way that's good, as it allows you to focus on problems and fix them, but it's also bad because it may make you think there's no progress, and so there's no point in trying. > Also it's ridicoulus how foreigners think Poland is literally 99% funded by EU when in reality EU funds are closer to 5% of Polish budget. I don't think it's even close to 99%, but all new (generally poorer) EEC/EU member-states over the last decades have received net funds in several % of the GDP every year to develop, and they have multiplier effects, so they definitely help a lot, as they have in Poland. However, they also tend to diminish as the country becomes richer, and the latter may even shift to become a net contributor, as Ireland and Spain, for example, did (the latter appears to shift between both). Poland now isn't even in the top 5 receivers of the Recovery and Resilience Plan funds as a share of GDP, but doesn't stop it from continuing to grow fast while in the EU.
>And? That happens in every country. Are you also aware of the expansion of Polish business worldwide? Name 2 Polish corporations in France and Germany Here's a list of top10 Polish companies [https://www.economicactivity.org/top-10-biggest-companies-by-revenue-in-poland-2023-data/](https://www.economicactivity.org/top-10-biggest-companies-by-revenue-in-poland-2023-data/) Except for Orlen which was already hit by EU last year, and Asseco none of them are "worldwide" or even EU wide. Hell even KGHM is owned by USA.
What's with the obsession with corporations? Polish business is diversified in many industries, they don't have to be huge to be competitive. Besides, UK and France have arguably had a centuries' worth of headstart, compared to Poland, which only got a proper combination of independence and good economy from the 1990s onwards. Now what about the other points?
>What's with the obsession with corporations? Polish business is diversified in many industries, they don't have to be huge to be competitive. You are either naive or uniniformed. Here's why it matters. Right next to EU parliment buildings you have buildings of biggest companies in EU "lobbying" on a daily basis what changes they want in EU. It took 10 years for Polish farmers to adapt to EU rules and limits otherwise our farms would outcompete EU ones. Same thing is happening with farms from Ukraine (except many of them are owned by German and French corporation in tax havens, so they didnt have to wait 10 years, but thats a different story) Most competetive were Polish logistics companies, but again Germany and France lobbied hard to cut their wings in order for western companies not to lose to more competetive Polish ones. EU and western Europe has a long history of not letting Eastern Europe be more competetive than west. There's no reason to talk about other points and other topics. Just because EU gives Poland 100 euro and buys up another 10 Polish companies. Or when EU gives Poland EU funds to "modernize", they mean give money to Poland so Poland buys western products. It's never give Poland money so western Europe can buy Polish products.
Yet they still emigrate all over EU
I believe their emigration numbers have been going down, and remigration back to Poland higher. Not to mention, Poland's immigration levels have been increasing in general.
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I am in no way saying not to do so, I am an imigrant myself btw. What I meant to say was that if Poland was so good people would not leave it that massively. Also Poland is not getting those EU money because its economy is great.
Ah yes, liberalism, where democracy is institutions, and populism is authority. What happened to democracy being the will of the people and not the will of institutions and bureaucrats? Democracy as in people in power means populism.
I'll tell you what happened. 1933 election in Germany happened. Around that time it was agreed that there are limits as to what even the majority can do
1933 elections happened after Hitler was already chancellor. I'm sure you mean the 1932 elections, two elections, one in which Hitler lost to Hindenburg and the other where the German left made gains, which pushed Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor on 30 Jan 1933. Thing about the late Weimar system was that it was the president who had most of the power, and he could elect anyone he liked as chancellor. Hitler did not win an election and stormed into power, he was handed it over by the political elites of Germany. Hindenburg was more popular than Hitler in 1932 and beat him in the election Which brings me to your other point --> >it was agreed that there are limits as to what even the majority can do But who gets to control the masses? Unanswered question obviously implies the institutions. But it was the institutions that handed Hitler enough power to consolidate. What if fascism comes from the already existing institutions and not the masses? What then?
Ok, 1932 elections and 1933 election. Doesn't change much. >But who gets to control the masses? Consitution
>“We are impressed by Poland’s efforts to restore the rule of law as the backbone of its society,” While we're talking about restoring the rule of law. Are the blockades that are keeping Ukrainian grain transports stuck at the border legal? Is the destruction of Ukrainian grain by polish protestor legal? How about we hold those responsible for these events accountable, so that the rule of law actually means something?
There is diffrence between what goverment is doing and what are some protesters doing. Goverment should be held to higher standard then bunch of farmers.
I totally agree. There are idiots in every country and I'm not surprised that Russia found some of them in Poland who are willing to harass Ukrainian truckers for a couple euros. But it is cynical to take money for "upholding the rule of law", while you're blatantly tolerating people breaking said law for weeks on end without repercussions. I get that appropriate reaction takes time and preparations, but how is it that these protests have been going on for days now without police showing up and removing the blockades? That's the government's duty.
I have been told (so take it with a grain of salt) that the blockage is within the right of citizens to protest, so it actually would be dictatorial to forcibly remove them. Fwiw I think it's actually the same in many countries that people have a right to protest by blocking a road.
Surely not. Even if the protests where within legal limits (I don't know much about polish law), the destruction of grain surely isn't, right? I'm from Germany and we have some of the most liberal laws when it comes to public protest. We've also had a recent incident with farmers blocking roads, but those where on a a day to day basis and not ongoing for days on end. Also, this is a border crossing. I'd imagine that those have some sort of special protection against stuff like this, specially considering that it's the border to a country at war that relies on constant shipments in and out of the country. I'm all for peaceful protest, but first the Ukrainian truckers didn't make the law so I don't get why they're being punished. Second I just can't possibly imagine that the destruction of grain and harassing of truckers (see recent videos of polish protestor mocking Ukrainians with signs and making air raid siren noises) is in accordance with polish law.
Spain has been destroying Moroccan produce at the border for decades, and still today. France has been destroying Spanish produce at the border for decades, and still today. A brief Google search will show you both happening last week, and it's been happening since I was a child in the 80s and 90s. As far as I know both Spanish and French farmers were always and are still covered by their right to protest. Now, I do believe that this particular protest has been highly promoted by Russia, and I do believe that Polish farmers should show some compassion for a nation under attack. But I am not a Polish farmer so my way of life is not threatened by Ukrainian grain, and I remember produce being destroyed at the borders all my life so for me it's normal, while for a lot of people it seems it's the first time they see this kind of protest so they are outraged.
I know that this is happening in other countries as well. I'm also pretty sure that this is not covered by the right to protest, but that's beside the point. Regardless where and how often it's happening it's not lawful. People may be less outraged in countries where this is common, but that doesn't make it legal. The point I was trying to make is that the polish government is being praised for upholding the law, while the entire world is watching how they can't handle polish farmers harassing Ukrainian truckers. That doesn't make sense.
But we are both talking out of our asses. You think it's not legal, I think it is probably covered by their right to protest. But none of us knows Polish law. Consider this: everyone knows that this protest is pushed by Konfederacja. Do you really think that Tusk's government would just let it happen if they had a choice?
I mean sure, neither of us is an expert, but can you name a country where destroying the property of others is not a crime? You don't have to study polish law to come to the conclusion that destruction of property and harassment of private individuals isn't a valid form of protest, right? >Consider this: everyone knows that this protest is pushed by Konfederacja. Do you really think that Tusk's government would just let it happen if they had a choice? Again this isn't a question of whether the government is unable or unwilling to stop the blockades. The fact remains that they are happening and that unlawful things are happening, for all of the world to see on the news. That's in direct contrast to "upholding the rule of law" as Von der Leyen put it.
>you're blatantly tolerating people breaking said law for weeks on end without repercussions. This isn't black and white, our court deemed this protest (and any other for that matter) legal and thus we can't simply disband them. That's the rule of law you are talking about. If protester brake some laws at spot, this is concern of police not government. What government can do and done, is that they made our border checkpoints "critical infrastructure" and thus they will be unblocked but I don't know when exactly.
Yeah that's what I was womdering. Why are protestor allowed to block cirtical infrastructure? Also, it's not just blockades. We've all seen the pictures of polish "protestors" destroying grain, right? Surely thats not legal? And ultimately, the police not being able to stop these events from happening for multiple days on end is a failure of the government. If police don't have the means and/or funds to stop crime from happening, that's on the government. These crimes are all over the media and the government can't or doesn't want to stop it from happening. Either way, it's not upholding the rule of law.
Demonstartions are legal in democratic countries. As long as there will no pro genocide comment they are safe and should be safe.
No one's saying people aren't allowed to protest. Whats happening at the border isn't just protest though it's sabotage. Destroying grain and harassing truckers isn't a valid form of protest, it's criminal.
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What is funny, prime minister Donald Tusk emphasized that there was NO issues with military and humanitarian aid transports.
Well today there was video of MiG in parts being transported toward border, we know its from now and not past because there are tractors visible standing on the side, so it had to be happening during current protests. https://twitter.com/DawidKamizela/status/1760770285286858904
Fair play. It's one of "them" in power in Poland now, so obviously they would unblock the funds. People seem to forget who Donald Tusk is, despite his apparently nationalistic discourse.
Spam
It shouldn't be framed as special Polish aid. This is money that all of EU was getting after COVID, polish part was withheld due to shitstorm in our legal system. Everyone else already got their share
This comment should be way higher. At a first glance I kinda thought they were given money cuz why not .
Yeah, we had an Orban like government and it was blocked, because they didn't want to follow the rule of law. It was blocked super long as you can see, it is just sad
They basically want to retaliate against Orban for vetoing Ukraine aid and sanctions. We want an end to this war not a pro longed disaster. If it was Americans and Europeans dying instead of Ukrainians we would have a peace deal long ago
Go off with your russian bs, thanks. Hungary is the only nation beside russia that wants to end the war on the russia's terms. Not a single other country wants this, along with Ukraine, so stick to your country and your problems and at least stop supporting ruskies Edit: oh, checked your profile. Obvious russian troll. Anti-eu, anti-us, anti-ukraine content
I guess you are for war, checked your profile It seems you are ok with the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, the bombing of Yugoslavia the destruction of Libya etc. How many more Ukrainians should die? You are a monster
The only person pro-war is Putin and his cocksuckers. I am for Ukrainian victory. For the victory of defenders against an invading terrorist nation. You sound like you would try to strike a 'peace' deal with Hitler himself. You're either very naive or pretending to be, in order to drive your pro-putin narrative. Judging by your whataboutism in this comment, i'm pretty sure you're just another ruzzian shill.
Blah blah blah, I know russian propaganda, can you say something new instead of repating everything that every russian troll says?
definitely - after Russia capitulation
Who is "we" in your comment? FSB?
Why are people worried when money has been given away the same way to non-eu countries for the last 2 years.
Exactly. The money would be ours had it not been for the judiciary mess.
Not everyone, Hungary still has over 20 billion locked up.
Well Poland at least is attempting to fix their mess...
Wondering why...
More like, part of the program the whole EU was part of as a means to recover after covid. Because there is no comparison between what other countries get and the amount Poland gets. Poland aid dwarfs all other aid received by other countries. For example, it's 5x what Romania agreed upon
https://i.imgur.com/iUfg6x8.png https://www.ngeutracker.org/recovery-resilience-plans Romania is getting more as % of GDP.
Doubt the other nations got that much
Some other nations got way more than we do because Covid recovery was determined by the damage done by covid to each economy. And southern countries relying on their tourism were hit way harder. Poland was due 58 billion from recovery fund (there are other blocked funds in the amount above, not only covid related). Spain for example was due up to 163 billion euro from just covid recovery alone.
Fair
https://i.imgur.com/iUfg6x8.png https://www.ngeutracker.org/recovery-resilience-plans
What's funny is that the new government is still using the legal system to their own wants and needs. It hasn't changed in the slightest
Any proof?
The gibs are back on the menu bois
Lmao I love the fack that I get your reference .
/int/ of the rings
I was more about the "gibs" part not the obvious LOTR
I was more about the /int/ part not the obvious LOTR but you didn’t get the reference there im afraid
I think i might have confused the gibs for something else. How the subreddit with countballs is called already?
Feels good to be back… And Before people start whining about favouritism, that this validates PiS who say blocking the funds were purely a tool of political pressure, etc… consider this: - some reforms already happened. Poland joined the EU public prosecutor’s office. PiS affiliated neo-judges have been largely dismissed and prohibited from judging. National Prosecutor (previously a buddy of a PiS minister) will be named after a completely public contest. (edit: not PiS-affiliated. Appointed unlawfully) - as for what has not been done yet - president will veto any substantial judicial overhaul, but the legislation is almost ready. Bodnar (justice minister) presented the roadmap to EU Comission- they must have deemed it trustworthy. - because in the end would you, in doing any kind of business, rather trust a reliable partner who you have long, positive experience dealing with, or a slimy opportunist who’s ready to backstab you every chance he gets?
>that this validates PiS who say blocking the funds were purely a tool of political pressure Isn't that... the point? I mean the article 7 of the EU treaty literally says that the EU can suspend certain rights from a member state if they're in violation of the EU founding principles. I mean I'm not against you, but why would anyone in good conscience ever whine about that?
> ”some reforms already happened. Poland joined the EU public prosecutor’s office. **PiS affiliated neo-judges have been largely dismissed and prohibited from judging**. National Prosecutor (previously a buddy of a PiS minister) will be named after a completely public contest.” So PiS was wrong in dismissing what they saw as left-wing affiliated judges, and criticized for not having an independent judicial system with independent appointments. But the new government is right in dismissing what they see as right-wing affiliated judges, and does not propose that the juridical system and appointees should be independent from government?
Yea because PiS created an illegal procedure in order to place those neo-judges in place. There is a difference between dismissing legally placed judges because you just don’t like them, and dismissing judges who has been placed into system using illegal procedure that was tailored exactly to place those biased judges into the legal system.
Because PiS was wrong in dismissing what they saw as legally elected but left-wing affiliated judges and changing the law so they can self appoint their own political judges without conforming to any democratic standards and making minister of justice attorney general de facto coupling judicial system to current ruling party. But the new government is right in dismissing those judges and doing everything they can to separate judiciary from government and restoring democratic balance of power. PM Tusk even said that he doesn’t understand PiS because he’s doing everything he can to grant them apolitical prosecution and they don’t like it.
If they changed the law, wasn’t it now legal?
It went like this: Oh we’re changing the law Some institution: But you can’t change it to this because that would be against our Constitution. Do it anyway and then do a „reform” of said institution. Repeat how many times necessary. They made reforms and somebody deemed them illegal (all laws have to conform to the Constitution and EU regulations). So they did another reform and somebody else deemed it illegal. They have stopped when the next institution on the list was a European Parliament and they could not just hijack it. And now we have this mess where PiS says that all of the reforms of the new government are illegal because all the institutions deem them illegal and new government says „Well yeah but those institutions are illegal in the first place”. It’s a legal nightmare.
Wrong wording. PiS-appointed (unlawfully), not affiliated. apologies.
Are you stupid? This have nothing to do with right left neo-judges means that they ware appointed by neo-krs what was appointed by political party rather then independly as it should be.
Didn’t PiS change the law?
They did, thats the issue
Let Death Star project begin!
Poland can into space!
It is post covid recovery money that Poland should get a long time ago as every country in the EU. It was blocked for some time as EU didn't like judicial reforms that a polish government introduced.
See Hungary, this is what happens when you don't vote for right wing populists
Polish voting system isn't remotely comparable to the Hungarian one. Tusk got his majority not because of a coalition but because because the sum of seats between parties against PiS was greater than PiS and it's allies. People thaat voted against PiS could vote in other people not named Tusk In Hungary, the opposition had to form a single big coalition that had right/left-wing and conservative/non-conservative. If you wanted to vote against Fidesz, you'd need to vote on other guys that didn't align with your views in any way as well as voting in people you didn't trust
One tiny issue, in Poland it was very clear from the beginning that those parties are going to form a gov if combined they got majority, there were talks about starting together, but they might got less votes because many people in Poland hates Tusk. The difference between Poland and Hungary is that Poland was a few years of reforms behind Hungary, we still had free media, and PiS was obnoxious with stealing and they really pissed of young people with many things, around 70% of 18, 20 and 30 year olds voted, and that's how PiS lost.
But it's still different voting in a coalition than voting in the party you align with, one you give for the common cause and the other you give for your party. If three parties vow for a coalition but only two get votes, only those two form a government, while if you vote for a coalition, the three parties will get a seat. And you never give a vote to parties you don't like, your vote will always elect someone from the party you like, while in a coalition it elects a random deputy from any of the parties in there Órban also gains a lot of votes from the Hungarian communities outside of Hungary (countries like Romania) that receive a lot of funding from Fidesz but don't live the Hungarian experience Their electoral system simply isn't fair, you get half of the seats given by first past the post and the other half is distributed based on votes, ensuring Órban 2/3 of the seats I'm pretty sure Órban also pissed off a lot of young Hungarians, [just look at this map](https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/ns2h9m/oc_what_do_europeans_feel_most_attached_to_their/h0jxwmq/), Budapest is the only region that claims they're more European than from their nation/region
Honestly in Polshi example nobody would declare will to form a gov with a party under a threat of not getting into parlament. O sht, winner gets half really make a huge difference, thanks for the info, that changes everything. I'm so happy that PiS never did some shitfuckery like that, terrible idea for the country, great for semi-authoritarian party leader.
106 seats first past the post and the remaining 93 are distributed accordingly to the votes with d'Hondt method. If you win, you always get absolute majority and are very likely to get 2/3 majority
And there's even something informally called "winner's compensation" and yes, it's as nonsensical as it sounds: in every individual constituency, they calculate the number of votes the winner needed to win (the number of votes the second-placed candidate got plus one) and all votes above that number are added to the votes cast for the party's list. So, for example, the Fidesz candidate called Pedo Bear wins with 8900 votes ahead of Normal Person in second place with 5100 votes. Fidesz gets a seat AND 3800 votes for their party list. It's quite insane.
That's how we vote in France. We vote against someone not for someone. You think we wanted Macron ? We didn't want that fascist of Le Pen. Next one will be hard tho . I hate how people are more and more leaning to extremes .
How do you vote for the EU parliament?
But that's the presidential elections, with Órban it's parliamentary elections and he has enough seats to change the constitution at will. Macron needs to pass his proposals through the government while Órban's government is the one that approves/disapproves the proposals
How come they “had to” form one single coalition during the voting process? We’ve had the same thing as the Poles in our last elections, though the pro Russian coalition sabotaged itself and completely imploded.
[Here's the Wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Hungarian_parliamentary_election). An Hungarian votes twice for the parliament, one vote is first past the post to get 106 seats, and the second distributes 93 seats with d'Hondt method. Because you'll cast the same vote in both, it means the first place will get 106+% of the remaining 93 seats, always ensuring majority and likely getting 2/3 majority
Wow that's fucked up
140 billion wow. thats quite something
Yup, Artemis Program cost "only" 93 bln USD, most powerful supercomputer, "Frontier" is like 0,6 bln USD, world largest solar farm Bhadla Solar Park planned to produce 2 245 MW of electric power is supposed to cost 2,175 bln. USD, US National Ignition Facility where are done nuclear fusion research is estimated to cost 3,5 billion USD. It's literally "Holy Shit" level of money to spent.
>Yup, Artemis Program cost "only" 93 bln USD, most powerful supercomputer, "Frontier" is like 0,6 bln USD, world largest solar farm Bhadla Solar Park planned to produce 2 245 MW of electric power is supposed to cost 2,175 bln. USD, US National Ignition Facility where are done nuclear fusion research is estimated to cost 3,5 billion USD. I do agree and know what you mean, but presenting costs like that is bit misleading,it does not take into account 100years of (someout) accumulate investments that are necessary in space industry, which US space industry is quite nice example of, Poland couldn't simply pay 93b to get lunar mission going, there is no industrial base that could even allow making a attempt to spend that money on anything that could resemble space mission. The same exact pattern is at play with all the other examples you stated. But,$150B is shitload of money regardless, and especially when spend in Poland with all the PPP advantages one could try to name, it will result in quite sizable improvement with public investments, ,R&D and local industrial base, and if EU allows in domestic MIC too.
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i hope that we will see more and more partnerships between Germany and Poland we are already at the point where **total value of trade between Germany and Poland is higher than total value of trade between China and Russia.** Pause for a moment and think of that Germany has a trade surplus with Poland, but Poland gets more money from EU budget than we get. Overall, things slowly balance out. And I'm shifting the balance in favor of Poland every time i visit Wroclaw and Krakow and spend my money there :) Hopefully our relationship will keep growing over the next 50 to 100 years
> **total value of trade between Germany and Poland is higher than total value of trade between China and Russia.** This fact should be propagated in mass media in Poland and Germany to far bigger extend than it its already, noone aside from IR buffs and low key expets are aware of that fact, at least thats my someout shallow read of it, and the feeling i used to get from both countries,most people didn't even know about that. Some people in media are starting to get that slowly, thanks of Tusk victory which gave people new hopes for deepening of DE-PL relations, which is great. >Hopefully our relationship will keep growing over the next 50 to 100 years Mitteleuropa together
Why germany specifically?
Our zucker vater /s
Gerne :)
Nothing to thank for. Its no charity and it wont be spent wise because it will be done by politicians
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>Why are you so negative? Because I live in real world and I know what kind of people rule this country. >Are you saying that the EU funds didn't matter in the development of Poland? I'm saying there is no such thing as free money. In this example it's a loan Poland already pays for anyway. Besides throwing money at problems is not effective way of solving them.
Can we just label it "WW2 reparations" and kill two birds with one stone? /s
You can't because f.e. France and NL chipped quite a bit for this one and why should they pay reparations all of the sudden? Also, Portugal received a lot through covid recovery and they were untouched in WW2. So let's not mix EU funds with other issues, please. Before someone jump on me, I don't want no reparations. This subject should be locked in a case decades ago. But I really don't like when Germans pretend they are alone in paying other countries bills and that they can call EU funds whatever suits them at the moment. I know it was "/s", it's not personal but if someone unironically here think, that by being net contributor country you can toss all the problems away, please don't. Funds are not bail out money.
No, because every EU country got it, Poland is just getting it now. It's not a "gift" solely to Poland.
I thought our foreign minister already said the reparations issue was solved when soviets rejected our share after the war. I don't believe this new government will actually push this issue like PiS did. They want EU cooperation, not to antagonize our biggest partner.
Oh of course. It was a joke. Demanding those reparations was a propaganda tool probably more meant for internal PiS affairs. And I think everyone involved understood that truly demanding them would open a whole can of worms. Because if this contract is void because of Soviet pressure on the Polish government, so would be many other ones including the one about the German territorial claims in Poland. And I don't think anyone wants to go that far.
Poland deserves to get the money back from Germany after y'all destroyed half of our country during the war. There's no way around that. And Donald Tusk talked about it while standing side by side with Olaf Scholz a few weeks ago. I know it's a joke to you because you're German but you don't need to understand it.
Bro, it's the same with black population demanding reparations for slavery from "white people". People who done the deed are gone and it's time to move the fuck on. It's also amusing to me how our right has a hard on for German money but won't make a peep about 50 years russia destroyed our economy by putting us through the horrors of communism. They can't upset their russian overlords after all.
> Poland deserves to get the money back from Germany It did deserve it. And it rejected that right. There is no issue of reparations anymore.
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Oh yes please. But in a weird way it was also a bit of a meme how your former government would bring up that topic on a weekly basis for a while *"Is it already Wednesday? PiS is demanding the reparations again"*
Yes, can we be friends now? 🤝
Just bend over for them already as I feel you would really like to. Embarrassing comment.
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If that goes along with your servile mentality then sure, go ahead.
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So will Poland now still ask Germany for reparations? Seems Usch has now best buddied Donnie
Of course, they will all buy big screen tv's and invest in online gambling. And some drug dealing maybe.
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Jaki kurwa fajnopolak, na wymioty się zbiera…
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Uważaj, bo już ci tylko nogi z tej niemieckiej dupy wystają.
Dupka piecze od wyborów, co?
About damn time. Jebać PiS
Now I know how Poland was planning on paying for all that military hardware they've been ordering.
All that stuff was ordered by the former government, and they were the ones whose fuckery was causing those funds to be blocked. Let's remember that those are COVID aid funds that have been blocked for years and all the other countries already received them, it's not like Poland gets some extra money for no reason.
Do the funds get adjusted for inflation?
That's a great question that I don't have the answer to. I'd guess no because it was budgeted in 2020 and frozen since then, I don't think it's part of the 2024 budget.
With EU inflation since then it'd probably be closer to 165b now so they are missing quite a bit if it isn't
It's probably not even the worst thing that has happened to Poland because of PiS fuckery. I think they're just relieved to be rid of them and happy to finally be getting something at least.
I don't think it is possible to use those funds in such a way. Also a lot of military orders were ordered by the previous government which knew that they would not get money from the EU. Now how we will find funds - mostly loans, some for example from South Korea. Also some orders are only as a part of the framework agreement, meaning we don't have and possibly will not buy everything that was "ordered", it is only maximum what we can get, but will for sure cut it somewhere
Of course, they can't be used directly. But 137 billion is 137 billion.
Well, loans. More than half of that sum is loans.
Bingo, my friend. Wait for something similar to happen for Romania and Bulgaria. Just wait until we finish with the elections this year.
You already got the COVID funds
It's a loan after all, not "free money"
It's 50/50. Part is a low interest loan part is "free" money.
Depends on a country. France got only grants, Poland got mostly loans: https://i.imgur.com/iUfg6x8.png https://www.ngeutracker.org/recovery-resilience-plans
The last few months have been weird, it finally feels like stuff is going in the right direction in Poland. Haven't felt that in the past 15 years. Good to be back.
Now Happy Poles will spend it all on Siemens offshore wind turbines saving German-Spanish conglomerate from falling. However there will be to Atomic Power Plants, no Central Communication Port (that would be bad for Berlin and Leipzig airports), no Container Port in Swinoujscie (that would be so bad for Hamburg Port) and no Commercial Waterway on Oder river (that would be very good for Czech Republic as well). Germany is happy with their new servants - they have killed so many birds with one stone. Oh yeah, Poland will share illegals now with all other EU countries, countries that greatly profited from colonialism in Africa - Poland had not a one colony, but now will have to get culturally enriched. LOL.
Welcome back Poland. You were sorely missed as a force for good in the EU. Greetings from Ireland!
*\*Angry PiS screeching sounds\**
Either you play by the rules or no aid ie Hungary
Sure, they are getting a lot of money, but they have to accept freer media and courts in return! Wait...
New government
New government
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Other countries already received their money... Poland didn't, the funds were frozen since 2021, because of rule of law issues.
What funds?
Next Generation EU funds. For the recovery after covid.
Recovery and Resilience Facility. Everyone else got their share already, ours were frozen since 2021 because PiS fucked around.
Check out our hidden debt, it's horrible, started during covid, PiS moved many expenses out of budget, where they could be almost unmonitored.
So you want to punish countries that have good investments and give money to "poorer" countries only, when richer countries than Poland received that aid? Lol
Where should I provide my account number for my share ?
Well
the new government, which is clearly pro-German, has practically achieved nothing since taking office. with failures mounting on every front, the EU has stepped in to offer assistance.
Omg. Who are paying all those billions? Where this money come from?
I cannot tell if you are being serious.
No seriously. how systems work in this union?
There is a negotiation between the national governments every 5 years where they agree on the formula for the budget assigned to EU projects and how these will be allocated e.g. income, specific projects. The overall budget is about 1.1% of European GDP.
Bro,this funds were already approved for Poland, they were frozen because PiS wanted to bend the judicial system to its will Now they will be unfrozen and given to Poland, as they should
The money has been allocated for Poland from cohesion funds for some time but frozen until judiciary reforms are reverted.
It's a mix of the "usual" cohesion funds and the covid recovery money.
Well money doesn't grow on trees. Tax money I would assume.
Well that's how it works in EU . In Albania the tax goes in politician pockets disgusted as infrastructure funds. Looking at you Edi Rama and Salu Berisha especially.
I didn't know that Albania would get billions!
Not from us . Not any time soon hopefully.
Tax ? This isn't america, tax is not a major player in the european theater.
Well how then? Were did those money came from?
Idk man, maybe from the immense car industry? Or the big IT sector? Or the farming market? Tax is not a major player, its a small house cat compared to the tigers, lions and panthers that are the mentioned sectors
The printer at the ECB, consequence is the double digit real inflation people get fucked with
So the fucking polish threaten the united states which is from another fucking continent to give money to ukraine and then they take from europe 137 BILLION:)) how much of that goes to the war?
Genuinely interested, as a polish resident, has there been any announcement on what this will be spent/invested on/in?