Poland’s Presidential Elections: political transition, migration, war, security
Seminar (Online & vor Ort)
9. Mai 2025, 9:30–11:30 Uhr
ERSTE Stiftung, fjum, Presseclub Concordia
REGISTRATION: IN PERSON registration HERE.
ZOOM participation registration HERE
Background
European politicians cheered when Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform won the 2023 parliamentary elections in Poland. Expectations were high: the new government would revert ultraconservative trends, reinstate the rule of law, free the media, liberalize abortion, to mention a few issues. Two years later, Donald Tusk suspended the right to asylum on the border to Belarus and plans to leave Ottawa Agreement, Abortion has not been legalized.
On 18 May 2025, Poland holds presidential elections. Campaigns indicate that candidates are trying to outdo one another in their attempts to win over conservative voters.
Balkan Insight writes: “Gavin Rae, a sociologist at Warsaw’s Kozminski University, says the candidates are mainly competing “on the right, on war and immigration, on who is the most militaristic and ready to spend more on the military.” The difficulty for PiS, Rae tells BIRN, is that “Tusk has moved so far to the right on these issues, that there is not much room left to compete with him.””
Wojciech Szacki, Bartosz T. Wieliński, and Marek Świerczyński will explore political issues at stake, different aspects of the transition process from PiS to Civic Platform and country’s militarization.
Speakers and Agenda
9:30 – 10:30 : Politics, transition expectations, media
Moderated conversation followed by Q&A
Wojciech Szacki, head of political desk, Polityka Insight. From 2002-2012, he was a journalist at Gazeta Wyborcza, focusing on party politics and opinion polls. Szack Co-hosts “Nasłuch” podcast and writes for Polityka weekly. He graduated law at the University of Warsaw.
Bartosz T. Wieliński, journalist and political scientist, deputy editor in chief of Gazeta Wyborcza. He joined the paper in 1998. His articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Welt, El País, and La Repubblica.
Moderator: Mirjana Tomic, fjum/Presseclub Concordia
10:30-10:45. Coffee break and networking:
10:45-11:30: Security and Militarization
Moderated conversation followed by Q&A
Marek Świerczyński, head of security desk, Polityka Insight. Świerczyński focuses on on Polish defense policy, NATO, conflicts and crises, technical modernization, and Polish-US military cooperation.
Moderator: Simon Weiss, senior researcher, security expert, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Vienna