As of January 2020, 80 different declarations of “LGBT-free zones” were passed by various Polish cities and provinces in central and south-east parts of the country, including four voivedoships, the highest level of administrative subdivision in Poland.
The revolution will not change the Polish Church, but neither will waiting for the self-reflection of the hierarchs who govern. The Church can be changed by its members: parish priests, curators, politicians, publicists, prosecutors, teachers, journalists, and so on, and so forth.
Both liberals and the left-wingers have a wide range of options for cooperation in Poland. This space encompasses not only typical overlapping areas in terms of their views as regards minority rights, civil rights or cultural changes within the society, but also defending the political system.
Leszek Jazdzewski, Editor-in-Chief of Liberte!, with his honest introductory address on Consitution Day, delivered before Donald Tusk, has caused a lot of controversy in all mainstream media, on social media, among politicians and within the society.
Zuzana Čaputová, the Vice Chairman of Progresivne Slovensko, a Slovak liberal party, is very likely to become the first female president in the history of the country. Her success is one of many signs that liberals in Slovakia are growing stronger again.
The Law and Justice party did not win the election in 2015 because it had had a good political program, but because those who were supposed to defend freedom turned out not to be too devoted to their cause.
On the whole, CEE countries – including Poland – still positively stand out in this respect among its European peers. Yet, this might soon come to an end as Poland’s governing party (LAw and Justice) is planning to introduce significant restrictions on Sunday trade.
In the times of Polish People’s Republic, when religion and all other key aspects of Polish identity were being actively supressed, the interests of the Catholic Church in Poland as an institution and the interests of raison d’etat were aligned to a great extent. Today it is not the case.
Laurels shall be awarded to a smooth transition in the party and the government after Donald Tusk left for Brussels. First, he ensured not having any ‘number two’ in Civic Platform (he devoted the last two years to getting rid of Grzegorz Schetyna). Next, out of the blue, before the internal opposition was able to react and close its ranks in time, he appointed Ewa Kopacz to take his place.
There are two processes going on in the Polish reality, which at a first glance may seem to exclude one another. On the one hand, there is a mass decrease in the number of church-going believers (circa 2-4 millions in the last few years), and on the other, there is the phenomenon of overtaking the “moral” discourse in Poland by extreme groups related to Church.
