Poland hoped that the EU’s Eastern Partnership summit would finally encourage a more decisive response to Russian activities in the area. Warsaw also wanted the EU to respond to rapidly changing regional realities by providing certain Eastern Partnership countries with a long term membership perspective. However, this vision of the EU as a more assertive player in the East may ultimately be nothing more than wishful thinking.

An interview with Ernest Wyciszkiewicz, director of the Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding. Interviewer: Grzegorz Szymborski.

David Ben-Gurion, one of the founders and the first prime minister of Israel, was born and grew up in Płońsk. Here, by the Płonka River, together with his friends, he was dreaming about the Jewish state.

On September 17th, Belarus celebrated its so-called “Day of National Unity”, an official holiday created on June 7th by Lukashenka’s edict. The date echoes the events of 1939, when the Soviet army entered Poland's territory as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Based on official interpretations and discourse, this text attempts to briefly demonstrate the flawed official logic that led Minsk to choose this date as a public holiday.

Poland’s relationship with the West has deteriorated since the PiS led ‘United Right’ coalition took power in 2015. Changes to the judiciary and media landscape remain at the centre of the tensions.

A reivew of The Ark. By: John Lynch. Publisher: Ringier Axel Springer Polska (Polish edition), 2021.

A review of Wrócę przed nocą. Reportaż o przemilczanym (I will come back before dusk. A reportage on the unspoken) By: Jerzy Szperkowicz. Publisher: Wydawnictwo Znak, Kraków, Poland, 2021.

The future of NATO’s nuclear sharing programme in Central and Eastern Europe is closely connected to the political relationship between Washington, Berlin and Warsaw. Dimensions such as geopolitics and infrastructure must also be taken into account.  

Poland has the potential to be a regional leader on NATO’s eastern flank. It will be up to politicians both in Warsaw and Washington to make this a reality.

Europe will either be united or not. It cannot be ruled out that an unforeseen event may lead to the disintegration of the EU. But it can also not be ruled out that an unforeseen event will cement it. Paradoxically, the COVID-19 pandemic, which is currently devastating the global economy, may prove to be such an event.

Prior to the creation of the European Union, Europe did not exist. It did not exist in the political sense, that is. It is true that François Guizot, the 19th century historian and statesman, believed that there is something like a European civilisation because a certain kind of unity permeates European countries despite countless differences dividing them. This unity, however, was manifest only to a select number of Europeans and only through comparisons with the brutally colonised European “Others” across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Americas. Certainly, the thus conceived civilisational unity did not translate itself into political unity. The geographical concept of Europe made political sense only as an unstable system of volatile states linked more frequently, and tightly, by their mutual hostilities than their alliances.

Statistics clearly show that unemployment among people with disabilities in Poland is decreasing. Behind these figures, however, there are many stories of individuals who believe that a growth in employment does not necessarily go hand in hand with creating an open atmosphere in companies. Is the Polish labour market friendly to people with disabilities?

A review of the book Our Man in Warszawa: How the West Misread Poland. By: Jo Harper. Publisher: Central European University Press, Budapest-New York, 2021.