Poland: A Developing Central European Power

Poland joined the European Union in 2004 as part of the EU’s “big bang” of Eastern expansion. This broke the Cold War’s East-West divide and brought, according to the Polish narrative, “Central Europe back to Europe.” It was also a huge expansion for the EU, becoming the Union’s sixth largest member in terms of territory and bringing in nearly 40 million new citizens.

Poland’s accession brought new resources to the EU: a large, cheap workforce, a new potential consumer base, the world’s fifth largest reserves of coal, and vast tracts of farmland. It also gave the EU control of Polish transport routes that have, for centuries, been used for both trade and invasion between Western Europe and the East.

In 2004, Poland was emerging from difficult post-Soviet reforms and reliance on international aid. The coming years would be the most economically and politically successful of its modern history; with the help of EU investment, aid, and low domestic labor costs, Poland grew rapidly in economic power and political influence. However, with Europe’s appettite for investment and aid shrinking, Poland now needs a new model for growth. Poland needs to address environmental and demographic challenges, address integration issues with the EU, and adjust its geopolitical strategy to continue to address immigration, regional conflicts, and other issues.

Geography and Demographics of Poland

Poland is located on the North European Plain. The Carpathian and Sudeten mountain ranges in southern Poland, coupled with hills in the north, form essentially a long valley horizontally down Poland’s middle. Thus, the majority of Poland’s rivers flow east to west. Most eventually drain into the Baltic giving most of Poland valuable access to international oceanic shipping. 

Poland is extraordinarily well-watered, with many natural transport routes. Furthermore, Poland’s Carpathian territory is quite traversable. While countries value mountain ranges for defense and river creation, mountains often create economically underused territories. Poland’s mountains, however, are densely populated with accessible mines, forest reserves, and developed farmland and orchards.

Poland’s topography and rainfall have also led to the formation of a breathtaking number of freshwater lakes which provide water, fishing, and recreational use.

Poland’s northern border is dominated by Gdansk Bay, a huge natural port. The city of Gdansk thrives there, moving trade from Poland’s largest river, the Vistula, to the Baltic Sea and international markets. Aside from the Gdansk area, the city of Szczecin, located in the far northwest of Poland on the Oder River and near the German border, is Poland’s only other major seaport.

Central Poland is mostly flat and well connected by rivers. For many centuries, it has hosted agriculture and cities providing industry, services, and government administration. Perhaps most importantly, Central Poland has long served as an efficient transport route between Western Europe and the East. The Carpathians, together with the Alps, divide Europe in two. Overland routes between them have naturally favored the flat passage through Poland that features a long, navigable river. 

Poland has benefited from trade along this route. However, it has also placed Poland between competing civilizations: Germany and France on one side and Russia on the other. Every major modern European conflict from Napoleon to WWII has used Poland as an invasion route. Poland spent most of the past two centuries divided or dominated as its neighbors sought geopolitical advantage by dominating these transport routes.

Poland’s abundant, fertile land has long supported large populations. Modern Poland is about the size of New Mexico with a population nearly equalling at about 38 million.

Historically, Poland was a diverse nation. While Poles were always a majority, relatively open borders and tolerant laws attracted significant minorities of Ukrainians, Belarussians, Jews, and others. Poland’s Jewish population was especially vibrant. In 1931, it was the world’s second largest at over three million. By 1945, however, nearly all minorities in Poland were gone – killed or displaced by WWII or moved outside Poland by the revision of borders that followed.

Today, more than 90% of the population in Poland is ethnically Polish, speaks Polish at home, and is Roman Catholic (historically the religion most associated with the Poles). No single minority has represented more than 1% of the population according to census numbers. A recent influx of Ukrainians to Poland following the 2022 War in Ukraine, however, may have pushed their numbers to as much as 8% of the population.

Poland’s Roman Catholics attend church more regularly than any other group in Europe. The Catholic Church holds enormous influence in Poland – as is evident in such grand-scale projects like the Temple of Divine Providence, a complex that was built in part with state funds, as well as the ubiquitous reverence of Pope John Paul II as one of Poland’s most popular national heroes.

A brief video from Stratfor, an American think tank on “Poland’s Geographic Challenge.”

The Polish, squeezed between world powers, their country wiped off the map twice, are often known for a characteristically negative, complaining, pessimistic attitude that they lace heavily with humor. Poles use the word “trudno,” which literally means “difficult,” to mean “it is what it is.” However, with a long history of democratic values, they also remain an empowered people who have historically stood up to oppression.

Today, Poland’s main challenges include responding to the War in Ukraine and other potential regional security crises, and continuing to boost living conditions and wages while maintaining economic growth in order to stem an oncoming wave of demographic decline. Many of its young people leave to work elsewhere; Polish birth rates are down, the average age is growing, and Poland’s slow population decline, begun shortly after the end of the Soviet Union, is continuing. If this is not reversed, Poland could face budgetary and other economic problems soon.

Early History: The Kingdom of Poland

According to Polish legend, long ago there lived three brothers – Lech, Czech, and Rus – who ultimately fathered the great Slavic nations.

One day the three brothers went hunting together in the woods and, following different prey, strayed in different directions. Czech headed West, Rus East, and Lech North. Then, against the red of the setting sun, Lech stumbled upon a white eagle defending its nest in an old oak tree on a hill. He took the vision as a good omen and decided to build a stronghold around the oak, calling it Gniezno (from the Polish for “nest”), and adopted the white eagle against the red of the setting sun as his emblem, which can still be found on the Polish flag and coat of arms.

Gniezno was indeed the capital of Mieszko I, the first ruler of Poland mentioned in written records. Mieszko was baptized Roman Catholic in 966, and Poland has been associated with Catholicism ever since. Under Mieszko I and his son, Boleslaw I Chrobry (died 1025), Poland established borders roughly corresponding to those of modern Poland.

In the 11th century, already sensing threats at its borders (from the powerful and growing Holy Roman Empire, a precursor to Germany) as well as internally from pagan tribes that had not accepted the Catholic king, the Polish capital was moved from Gniezno, in Poland’s central plains, to Krakow, in the more defensible Carpathians.

Poland fragmented in the early 12th century. Attempts were made to reunify, but several Mongol invasions in the 13th Century and wars with the Teutonic Knights weakened the country.

In the 14th century, Ladislaus, the Prince of Krakow, achieved significant unification through a combination of military conquest and diplomacy. Ladislaus gained enough power to win the blessing of the Pope, who crowned Ladislaus King of Poland in 1320, effectively ending other claims to the crown.

Ladislaus’ son, Casmir III, further expanded the kingdom and, perhaps most importantly, won local support in lands that had been fractious. Casmir codified laws and improved the state bureaucracy (in large part through education) in order to counterbalance and appease various elements of society. 

This led to “Golden Liberty,” also known as “Złota Wolność” in Polish, which refers to a unique political system that thrived in Poland and, later, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This system, primarily benefiting the nobility, was characterized by a strong emphasis on individual freedom, popular sovereignty, and limitations on the monarch’s power.

Casmir also built military and economic infrastructure, carried out monetary reform, and encouraged immigration to replenish a labor force weakened by two centuries of war. His General Charter of Jewish Liberties, an expansion and reaffirmation of the Statute of Kalisz (originally issued by Bolesław the Pious in 1264), granted all Jews freedom of worship, trade, and travel. This reaffirmation, combined with growing economic opportunity and political stability under Casmir, made Poland the favored home of Europe’s Jews. By the 16th century, Poland had Europe’s largest Jewish population. Casmir attracted other immigrants as well, Germans and Armenians most notably.

Casmir III died in 1370. His crown, under treaty, was claimed by Louis, King of Hungary, who united the two kingdoms. Unpopular with Polish nobles, the union was dissolved when Louis died, but Louis’ young daughter, Jadwiga, was elected by the nobles to lead Poland. At the time, a ruling queen in Europe was almost unheard of. Jadwiga later married the Grand Duke of Lithuania, establishing a union that eventually flourished into the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

A Polish-Lithuanian union was prompted early on by the common threat of Teutonic Knights, which a joint Polish-Lithuanian military campaign neutralized forever in the iconic Battle of Grunewald in 1410, an event and date memorialized in the works of Polish poets, authors and painters from Jan Matejko to Adam Mickiewicz. It plays an important part in Polish culture to this day.

Over the next two centuries, a long series of agreements brought Poland and Lithuania ever closer together, eventually uniting them in 1569 with the signing of the Union of Lublin. An early but comparatively advanced pre-modern democracy, The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a closely unified federal state with an elective monarchy, and governed through a system of local assemblies with a central parliament.

Like most pre-modern democracies, “citizens” were noble land-holders. All citizens were considered equal. The King was elected and his power checked by parliament. Citizens held rights to form political organizations and to rebel against the king if their rights were broken. Furthermore, in 1573, the Warsaw Confederation confirmed the religious freedom of all citizens in the Commonwealth, promoting stability in its multiethnic society.

In the Commonwealth, citizens amounted to about 15% of the population. Serfs, the majority of the population, were not citizens and had few rights.

The new state controlled many of the Baltic Sea’s most powerful ports and dominated trade there. The massive lands of the Commonwealth exported grain, furs, and more. Revenues poured into a growing army and navy, into infrastructure, and into colonizing the state’s Ukrainian lands, leaving a strong presence of Polish culture and Roman Catholicism there that continues to be felt today.

By the 17th century, the Commonwealth stretched from the Baltics to the Black Sea, encompassing all of present-day Belarus, most of Ukraine, and even (briefly) the city of Moscow itself. Commonwealth armies beat back Mongol invasions and pushed the Ottoman Empire permanently south of the Danube, earning praise from the Pope as a “defender of Catholic Europe.”

By the end of the 17th century, the King of Sweden had organized an alliance against the Commonwealth that would eventually surround it. Sweden invaded from the north while most Commonwealth troops were fighting the Ottomans in the south. Sweden’s rapid invasion, known as “the Deluge” in Polish history, stripped the Commonwealth of most of its ports. The Cossacks in Ukraine then rebelled and asked Russia for protection, further weakening the state’s southern region as well.

Ravaged by war, stripped of its lands and ports, the Commonwealth tried to regroup by raising taxes and placing rising expectations on its serfs. This led to detrimental agricultural processes and a further weakening of the economy. In addition, many of its enemies had industrialized to a far greater degree than it had. Unable to recover its military position, it was forced to accept the partitions of its lands between Prussia, Russia, and Austria-Hungary between 1772 and 1795. 

Poland was wiped off the map for 123 years and its population split between very different worlds. Austria, for instance, granted considerable autonomy and saw relative stability. Russia, which took the largest share, tried to more fully annex its territory and saw numerous rebellions. Under Prussian rule, Poles experienced a period of suppression, cultural assimilation efforts, and discrimination, including forced labor and evictions.

Poland: WWI to the End of Communism

Following WWI, Poland was resurrected with the support of Woodrow Wilson’s peace plan. The Second Polish Republic was a diverse state, with, for example, a Jewish population of 3.3 million at its peak, one of the world’s largest. The state lasted 21 years (1918-1939) until it was invaded by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in September of 1939 at the outset of WWII. The dual invasion had been secretly agreed upon by the two powers in advance under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.

German forces set up six major extermination camps in Poland, including Auschwitz. In the war, nearly three million Polish Jews and a nearly equal number of ethnic Poles died. The Germans plundered the land for natural resources and exploited its population through forced labor, deporting and displacing millions. The Soviets, after driving out the Nazis, took considerable property out of Poland, including whole factories, as war reparations.

As the Second World War ended, the Soviets assisted local communists in taking over the administration. At the Yalta Conference, they bargained to keep the Polish territory they had taken under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Poland, in return, was given a smaller strip of formerly German territory to its West. In both territories, the inhabitants were expelled, displacing millions. In the end, Poland was transformed from one of Europe’s most diverse to one of its most homogenous nations – nearly all minorities had been killed, expelled, or had fled.

The Yalta Conference also established that a coalition government of the now-ruling communists would be formed with the government in exile that had formed after the initial invasion. The communists, however, gained full power by 1947 and proclaimed the People’s Republic of Poland in 1952. Soviet-style reforms in agriculture and industrialization began, but lagged in the economically devastated country. The population regularly faced shortages of food and goods. The Republic fell deeply in debt, particularly in the 1970s. Protests were common and were commonly put down with extreme force, including guns and tanks. Soviet troops remained in Poland until 1989, maintaining the communist sphere of influence under the Warsaw Pact. 

As this turmoil built, an independent trade union called “Solidarity” arose in 1980. It quickly grew into a social movement encompassing wide swathes of society from Roman Catholics to political activists. When the government banned the group and imprisoned its leaders, it grew in popularity. As an underground organization, it pushed for national strikes and eventually forced the government to allow elections in 1989. Solidarity won all but one race against the communists in those elections.

Solidarity soon led changes in the constitution to dissolve the People’s Republic, and establish a Third Polish Republic with restored democratic rights. In 1990, Lech Walesa, leader of Solidarity, was elected the Republic’s President.

Modern Poland – Modern Challenges

Poland remade itself in a bottom-up reform movement. Perhaps for this reason, Poland has fared considerably better than many other post-Soviet States. Russia, for instance, experienced a top-down changeover and with drastic spikes in inflation, massive loss of population, and political and social turmoil. Poland, however, has been comparatively stable. A shock therapy program in the 1990s was painful, but enabled the country to quickly transform to a market economy. In 1995, Poland became the first post-communist country to reach its pre-1989 GDP levels.

A short travel video showing Poland’s great variety of landscapes: its flat plains, wide rivers, shorelines, and mountains.

Since then Poland has been increasingly integrated into the West. In 1999, Poland joined NATO and in 2004 it joined the European Union. Joining Schengen in 2007 boosted Polish tourism, although it also meant securing the previously extremely porous borders with Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia and thereby extending the much criticized outer border of “fortress Europe” eastwards.

EU aid amounting to $246 billion from May 2004 when they joined up to the end of 2023. This is nearly double the total sum of all Marshall plan investment in Western Europe, which adjusting for inflation would amount to about $133 billion in 2024. These funds have been used to improve infrastructure, notably rail transport, boost agricultural productivity, preserve cultural sites, and more. 

At the same time, individual income in Poland ranks 23rd out of the 27 EU countries (and 18th when accounting for PPP). Demographic decline has continued. Life expectancy fell by 3.3 years after Covid and has stagnated since then, although after controlling for per capita income, health outcomes are only slightly below the OECD average. Poland has a heavily regulated universal public healthcare system augmented by a thin private insurance market. Private spending on healthcare represented 28% of total expenditure in 2021, well above the EU average of 19%. A majority of this spending is in the form of out-of-pocket payments. In the case of specialist care, months-long waiting lists generate inequalities in access to care.

In the wake of the global health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Poland instituted the €59.8bn Recovery and Resilience plan which aimed to restore grants and loans to key projects that had languished due to falling GDP and economic decline. 

Facing environmental issues, in 2019, the Polish government published the PEP2030, a policy plan aimed at cleaning up communist-built industries dependent on Poland’s plentiful supplies of coal. Air pollution has fallen considerably and acid rain, once responsible for significant deforestation, is no longer a major threat. Substantial investments are still required to bring Polish industry as a whole in line with EU code.

Poland’s energy policy has been slightly less coherent, but has still managed to move Poland’s once-coal-heavy energy production from just ~9% renewable in 2018 to 28.8% renewable in 2024, mostly from new wind and solar power. Policy challenges lie in part from Poland’s strong desire to maintain energy sovereignty from the rest of Europe in the name of national security. The discovery of potentially significant shale gas in 2011 boosted hopes for energy independence, but exploration has now been largely abandoned due to low yields. Meanwhile, a new LNG terminal on Poland’s Baltic coast, and new interconnectors with the Czech Republic and Slovakia have diversified Poland’s import options. 

Economic and environmental issues helped contribute to an exodus of approximately 2 million primarily young Poles emigrating between 2004 and 2018. Improvements since that time, however, have seen Poland’s emigration and immigration levels largely equalize. By far, most immigrants have historically and continue to come from Ukraine. In second place are native Poles returning from immigration abroad. 

Low birth rates also weigh on Polish demographics. The average Polish woman has not had more than two children since 1991. Since 2000, this average has been persistently below 1.5. Even with emigration abated, population loss will continue, adding pressure to labor markets and consumer spending. 

One of Poland’s strongest domestic economic policies has been its management of the zloty and the Polish banking system. Although ostensibly obligated to adopt the euro as part of their EU accession treaty, Finance Minister Andrzej Domański has publicly stated that Poland is not ready to do so. Further, a 2024 survey found that 47% of Poles supported adopting the currency, 52% opposed it, and only a small remainder were undecided. 

Arguments in favor of adopting the Euro include its current relative stability as well as a reduction of exchange rate fluctuations with Poland’s largest trading partners, the vast majority of which are EU members. More reliable cross country prices could further lead to higher levels of investment and trade with EU partners. Adoption would also give Poland a voice in EU monetary policy.  

At the same time, keeping the złoty allows Poland to tailor its economic policy to its unique circumstances. Its ability to devalue the zloty, making Polish exports more competitive, to engage in quantitative easing, and to manage inflation through local interest rate control were all essential to Poland’s successful economic management through the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid crisis. 

Although its work is not done, Poland is continuing to see steady growth. Rising incomes and increased consumer spending are expected to be the major driver of a 3.3 – 3.7 percent GDP expansion in 2025, well above the expected average EU growth of 1.1 percent.

Poland has also enjoyed considerable foreign investment from firms looking to take advantage of Poland’s inexpensive labor, developing markets, and relatively weak currency. This has provided Polish politicians with political clout in the EU.

The nearly even split on Poles for and against adopting the Euro is also indicative of what may be a still more pressing problem, the nearly even split of Polish electorate between Europe-facing liberals and inward-facing conservatives. Shown in dramatic fashion in 2025 in the Polish presidential election, in which the conservative PiS party candidate won with 50.9% of the vote. Poland’s government is currently split between a liberal-led legislative coalition and the veto-wielding executive branch that have slowed or stalled the implementation of each other’s desired policy shifts on everything from judicial oversight to abortion rights and EU integration.

Modern Poland – Foreign Policy Challenges

Poland, having seen its fortunes change dramatically with the good or bad intentions of its neighbors, naturally takes its foreign policy very seriously. Also true to its history, Poland is seeking security and prosperity through unity with the states around it. 

Poland founded the Visegrád Group in 1991 with its fellow post-Communist states of Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. However, the structure was never institutionalized and has ruptured following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Poland and Czechia, fiercely pro-Ukraine, are now set against Hungary and Slovakia, which have been supportive of maintaining ties with Russia.

Poland also formed the Weimar Triangle in 1991 with Germany and France to support regular meetings of their foreign ministers with the goal of coordinating foreign policy, strengthening European integration, and providing Europe with the basis for a united response to crises.

Lastly, LITPOLUKRBRIG, a formation coordinating troops between Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland was established in 2014, and became operational in 2016. It is largely a framework brigade intended for cooperation as opposed to a standing combat force. It has played a crucial role in training Ukrainian forces, although it has played no combat role in Ukraine. 

Poland has been an active supporter of the EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy. Poland’s 2015 proposal to strengthen EU energy union strategy was contrary to EU climate goals at the time, but has become a shared EU-wide strategy following the energy crisis caused by sanctions related to the war in Ukraine. This strategy includes collective energy purchases to increase the EU’s bargaining power, use of coal reserves and permitting shale gas extraction, diversifying the EU’s gas supply, and subsidizing additional gas pipeline interconnections between member states. 

Poland’s main foreign policy focus for several years has been on the crisis in Ukraine. Poland was one of the first and strongest voices to decry Russia’s invasion. Poland has also become a key logistical hub for Western deliveries of weapons and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, despite Russian statements that such actions could make Poland a legitimate target for attacks. 

Poland’s relations with Ukraine run deep with shared culture and history from the time of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. A considerable portion of Ukrainian and Polish identity has been formed based on their resistance to communist and Russian domination. Ukrainians have also made up the vast majority of immigration to Poland, especially since Poland’s 2004 EU ascension and the 2009 establishment of a simplified Polish permit system for qualifying Ukrainians. This helped stabilize Polish demographics as Ukrainians sought better paying jobs and a better quality of life than has been available in Ukraine. Further, having a strong ally along its southern border, and being able to freely access an economic space stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea (a goal since the time of the Commonwealth) would be to Poland’s great geopolitical advantage. Thus, Poland has been extremely active in supporting Ukraine and advocating for its leadership within the EU and with Poland’s NATO ally, the United States. 

When waves of Ukrainian refugees arrived in 2022, Ukrainians were already by far Poland’s largest non-indigenous minority. Millions of Ukrainian refugees have crossed into Poland since 2022 and about 1.2 million have registered there as refugees as of 2025. Initially, the state and private individuals and organizations provided housing, healthcare, education, and legal and logistical support to those in need. However, most Ukrainians moved on to other countries and Poland’s net population gain has likely not been more than a few hundred thousand since the war. Further, although the refugee crisis at the time represented a moment of unification in Polish politics, budget and political limitations began arising in 2024. With the war now in its third year, private charity has begun drying up and the Polish government is likely to soon withdraw many of the extra support measures it has offered to refugees although refugees remain legally able to stay and work in Poland.

Conclusion: Poland and the World Ahead

Looking ahead from 2025, Poland remains well-positioned to shape the future of a more integrated Europe, particularly in the central and eastern European region, where its economic size and strategic location grant it considerable influence. However, the challenges it faces are mounting. Demographic decline, driven by low birth rates and an aging population, threatens long-term economic vitality and strains the social system. Poland’s growth model, which has been reliant on EU funds and low wages is reaching its limits as Europe is feeling budgets tighten and as quality of life improves in Poland. To sustain development, Poland must pivot toward innovation, raise productivity, attract more investment and immigration, as well as promote higher fertility rates with continued improvements in the quality of life. These needed improvements will require difficult structural reforms at home, including a clear, long-term vision for economic resilience, demographic renewal, and Poland’s role in a changing Europe.

Abroad, Poland must navigate a complex geopolitical landscape, balancing its NATO commitments, managing relations with the EU, and adapting to instability in its region. With prudent policy, strong institutions, and effective diplomacy, Poland can continue to thrive, but its future may depend on bold, long-term planning rather than short-term gains.

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