Nawrocki, a former head of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) backed by the right-wing opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, won the June 1 presidential runoff with 50.89 percent of the vote.
He defeated Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, the candidate of the governing Civic Coalition (KO).
The result mattered quickly because Poland’s president, while not running the day-to-day government, can veto laws passed by parliament and must sign off on ambassadorial appointments, powers that can slow or block a prime minister’s agenda.
Tensions were visible from Nawrocki’s first major address on August 6, delivered to the National Assembly, a joint session of the Sejm, the lower house, and the Senate, the upper house.
He said his win was "a signal from the people" that "it is not possible to govern like this any longer," and he argued Poland should adopt a new constitution by 2030.
He later said the current constitution had been "regularly broken" in recent years, pointing to disputes around the justice system and the government’s planned reforms.
One of the most persistent flashpoints was the long-running battle over ambassadors between the presidential palace and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, headed by Radosław Sikorski.
The dispute began under Nawrocki’s predecessor Andrzej Duda in March 2024, when Sikorski moved to end the missions of more than 50 ambassadors and withdraw a number of nominations submitted by the previous ministry leadership.
Duda insisted that appointing or recalling an ambassador requires the president’s signature, and the government responded by sending diplomats to lead posts as chargés d’affaires, who run an embassy without holding ambassador rank.
After taking office, Nawrocki indicated he would continue the hard line. In late September, he ruled out approving Bogdan Klich, who was serving as chargé d’affaires in Washington, as ambassador to the United States, and also rejected the prospect of nominating Ryszard Schnepf, the chargé d’affaires in Italy, as ambassador.
The conflict widened as Nawrocki used his veto repeatedly against legislation important to the governing coalition.
Among the measures he blocked were a bill regulating Poland’s cryptoasset market, amendments to child-protection rules, a bill easing rules for onshore wind farms, and legislation extending provisions for Ukrainian citizens living in Poland under wartime assistance rules.
He also vetoed plans to create the Lower Oder Valley National Park, which the government had billed as a major environmental project.
Late in the year, he vetoed an animal-welfare bill aimed at tightening rules on keeping dogs tethered, which triggered another political fight when lawmakers failed to override his decision.
Foreign policy provided Nawrocki an early global stage.
On September 3, he traveled to the United States on his first foreign trip as president and met Donald Trump at the White House.
Trump said US troops would remain in Poland and suggested the United States could deploy more if Poland wanted it, reinforcing Warsaw’s focus on security as Russia’s war against Ukraine continued into its fourth year.
The presidential election loss was also a turning point for the government itself.
In July, Prime Minister Tusk carried out a broader Cabinet reshuffle, which also created a new energy ministry, and expanded the remit of finance minister Andrzej Domański, who took oversight of the government’s economic portfolios.
Other changes included replacements at the culture, agriculture, state assets, health and sport ministries, while a promised reduction in the number of deputy ministers largely failed to materialize.
Changes rippled through the parties as well.
In late October, the Civic Platform (PO), the core party of the governing camp, formally rebranded as the Civic Coalition (KO), adopting the name it had long used as an electoral alliance.
The reorganization opened the door to absorbing politicians from allied groupings Nowoczesna (Modern) and Inicjatywa Polska (Polish Initiative), while the Greens stayed outside the party structure but remained in the same parliamentary caucus.
Party leadership elections are scheduled to begin in January.
Parliamentary politics brought its own headline moments.
In November, the Sejm carried out a planned rotation of its Speaker, a key post in Poland’s legislative chamber.
Szymon Hołownia, leader of the Poland 2050 group, stepped down on November 13, and Włodzimierz Czarzasty of the New Left replaced him on November 18, fulfilling a coalition agreement among the Civic Coalition, the Left, Poland 2050, and the Polish People’s Party (PSL).
In December, Czarzasty moved to consolidate his standing by running for party leader and was elected for another term, extending a leadership run that began in 2016 under the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), the Left’s predecessor.
Hołownia’s year was shaped by controversy and recalibration.
In early July, media reported he had met late at night in a private apartment with Adam Bielan, a senior Law and Justice figure in the European Parliament.
Photographers later recorded PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński arriving at the same location.
Speculation swirled about a possible "caretaker government" scenario, but Hołownia denied any talks about building an alternative coalition and said the timing and setting were a mistake.
Later in July, he sparked a storm by saying he had been urged to delay Nawrocki’s swearing-in and that doing so would amount to a "coup d’état," then said he had used the phrase as a political description rather than a legal claim.
Prosecutors included the matter in an ongoing investigation.
By the end of September, Hołownia announced he would not seek re-election as party leader, and he said he had applied to become the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, a bid that ultimately failed.
The governing camp’s centrist "Third Way" alliance between the PSL and Poland 2050 also fractured.
In June, the parties announced they were ending the coalition they had formed ahead of the 2023 parliamentary election, even though they had already been operating as separate parliamentary caucuses.
Accountability politics, a major theme since Tusk’s coalition took power in late 2023, remained intense.
Former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, a PiS lawmaker who oversaw the controversial Justice Fund while in office, became a central figure in investigations linked to alleged misuse of public money, including funding for the Pegasus spyware scandal.
In late January, police detained Ziobro to bring him before a parliamentary inquiry committee after repeated no-shows, but procedural disputes followed over whether he arrived too late for the session and whether a request for detention was legally grounded.
By early November, the lower house lifted Ziobro’s parliamentary immunity, clearing the way for prosecutors to pursue a case involving 26 alleged offenses tied to the Justice Fund.
Prosecutors later sought his temporary arrest, while Ziobro, who spent time abroad, said he would return under conditions tied to changes in the judiciary and prosecution service.
Far-right politician Grzegorz Braun generated another stream of controversy.
The European Parliament voted more than once to waive his immunity, including in May and again in November, in connection with multiple investigations.
In November, Braun drew further outrage when he spoke near the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial site in Oświęcim and described the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp area as effectively “extraterritorial,” remarks seen by critics as distorting history and inflaming antisemitic sentiment.
Security and defense dominated the second half of the year.
In June, NATO allies agreed at a summit in The Hague to push defense and security spending toward a new 5 percent of GDP benchmark, split between core defense and broader security-related outlays.
In September, the European Commission allocated to Poland EUR 43.7 billion in loans under the European Union’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) instrument, designed to boost joint defense procurement and industrial capacity across the bloc.
Days later, the security debate turned immediate when a swarm of Russian drones entered Polish airspace overnight on September 9 to 10, triggering Polish and allied fighter scrambles.
The incident, described as unprecedented in Poland’s modern history, accelerated work on anti-drone defenses and contributed to NATO’s launch of Operation Eastern Sentry to strengthen protection along the alliance’s eastern flank.
Poland also advanced a long-delayed naval procurement plan.
In late November, Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz announced Sweden had been selected as Poland’s partner for acquiring three new submarines under the Orka program, based on Sweden’s A26 Blekinge-class design.
In mid-December, the two countries signed an intergovernmental memorandum in Warsaw setting the framework for future negotiations, part of a broader effort to reinforce Baltic Sea security.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP