Poland

The problem with the EU’s messianic treatment of Poland

21 October 2021 5:00 pm

Mateusz Morawiecki insists his government does not want to take Poland out of the EU. ‘Eighty-eight per cent of Poles…

Poland's top court has finally called the EU's bluff

9 October 2021 12:26 pm

For many years, the EU has posed as a kind of overbearing imperial leviathan, which insists its law has to prevail over…

Donald Tusk is playing a dangerous game in dismissing Polexit

13 September 2021 9:42 pm

‘The British showed that the dictatorship of the Brussels bureaucracy did not suit them and turned around and left.’ That’s…

Fortress Europe is dreading the Afghan migrant crisis

25 August 2021 6:03 pm

Fortress Europe is pulling up the drawbridge. The takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban is likely to being about a…

Poles apart: The EU will never understand Poland

11 August 2021 7:05 pm

Poland was the largest state in Europe for over two centuries. It was a multi-ethnic commonwealth, a refuge for Jews,…

Hungary, Poland and the EU’s ‘diversity’ problem

2 August 2021 11:59 pm

It is quite something when the self-proclaimed ‘illiberal’ prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, reminds Brussels of its liberal principles.…

On the run from the Nazis: a Polish family’s protracted ordeal

31 July 2021 9:00 am

Writers of memoirs are often praised for their honesty — but how do we know? I found I did believe…

The EU will regret its legal onslaught against Poland

17 July 2021 3:30 pm

When European governments openly disobey courts, ears prick up. When two courts simultaneously contradict each other on the same day…

The rule of law is breaking down in the EU

17 July 2021 9:18 am

There are 27 member states in the EU. Two have now declared they are not bound by EU law. Based…

The strangest landscapes are close to home

3 July 2021 9:00 am

This pleasant volume, the author announces in the introduction, is ‘not a nature book, or even a travel book, so…

How a Polish coal mine risks derailing the EU's climate strategy

6 June 2021 4:59 pm

Cracks are appearing in the EU’s climate strategy. An international dispute over the court-ordered closure of a coal mine on…

Stalin as puppet master: how Uncle Joe manipulated the West

1 May 2021 9:00 am

Of the two dictators who began the second world war as allied partners in crime but ended it in combat…

Poles apart: why the Polish community doesn’t want the vaccine

13 March 2021 9:00 am

Why the Polish community doesn’t want the vaccine

Central Europe’s vaccine scepticism problem

3 February 2021 3:47 am

Countries around the world are in a race against time to vaccinate their populations against Covid-19. But there is one…

The Visegrád bloc are threatening to tear apart the EU

28 November 2020 7:00 pm

The bad boys of Europe are at it again. The EU has been attempting to tie budget funds to members…

Trump should take lessons in lying from Joe Biden

12 September 2020 9:00 am

Gstaad It snowed on the last two days of August up here, and why not? We’ve traded freedom of speech…

Two faces of Polish rebellion

14 July 2020 5:18 am

The narrowness of President Andrzej Duda’s victory in this weekend’s Polish presidential elections, where he defeated Rafał Trzaskowski, the Mayor…

Yalta was a carve-up — and the Poles are understandably still bitter about it

16 November 2019 9:00 am

‘The strong do what they can. The weak suffer what they must.’ Thucydides’ principle expresses an uncomfortable truth. The eight-day…

Hero or double agent? An encounter with Lech Walesa

9 November 2019 9:00 am

Lech Walesa is probably the most famous of all the thousands — actually millions — who struggled against the oppression…

Whatever happened to glasnost and perestroika?

26 October 2019 9:00 am

This is a timely book. It addresses the challenges of a fractious and fractured Europe. The first word of the…

Letters: why Rose Hudson-Wilkin is the right choice for Bishop of Dover

27 July 2019 9:00 am

Rose is the right choice Sir: Every Wednesday for the past nine years, it has been my privilege to attend…

Why are there so few Polish people on British TV?

20 July 2019 9:00 am

Have you ever seen a Pole on British television? Poles are the biggest immigrant group in Britain, numbering between 900,000…

In the face of strongmen, conservatives are letting their principles vanish

3 February 2018 9:00 am

In 1989, the year Soviet communism collapsed, John O’Sullivan, Margaret Thatcher’s former speechwriter, gave the world O’Sullivan’s First Law of…

Sorry, Bono, but ‘hyper-nationalists’ aren’t running Poland

21 May 2016 9:00 am

Poland is furiously divided – but it’s not in the grip of ‘hyper-nationalism’

King of heavy metal Bruce Dickinson at Madison Square Gardens in 1983

Meet the fans who risk death for heavy metal

14 May 2016 9:00 am

We in the West may snigger at heavy metal, but in some parts of the world its practitioners face the death penalty. Karen Yossman reports