Poland

Poland may decide to introduce new restrictions if cases of new coronavirus infections continue to grow, Polish health minister Adam Niedzielski told radio station RMF FM on Monday, as the country prepares for the spread of the Omicron variant, Reuters reported. Poland has been dealing with persistently high daily case numbers in a fourth wave that forced authorities to tighten restrictions in December.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said his government would present a new package of pandemic restrictions this week in response to the new Omicron coronavirus variant and was considering how to handle the approaching Christmas holidays, Reuters reported. "Tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow at the latest, we will present a second (package) related to the Christmas situation, and as reaction to the virus' Omicron mutation because the situation is indeed not looking good... We have many deaths," Morawiecki told a news conference.

Poland said Tuesday that consumer prices have risen 7.7% over the past year, evidence that inflation is accelerating even faster than had been expected in the largest central European economy in the European Union, the Associated Press reported. The November number is the highest inflation rate in 20 years and marks a larger jump than what economists had predicted. Last month, it hit 6.8% annually, according to the statistics office.

Poland’s central bank on Wednesday made its second interest rate hike in as many months as consumer prices surge, the Associated Press reported. The National Bank of Poland raised the rate to 1.25%, indicating that it intends to move more forcefully against rising prices after facing criticism for not acting soon enough. The move “suggests to us that it is taking the fight against inflation much more seriously than we had thought,” Capital Economics said in a note.

The European Union’s top court on Wednesday handed down a record daily fine to Poland for failing to comply with its decisions, the latest episode in an escalating fight between Brussels and Warsaw over judicial independence, the Wall Street Journal reported. The European Court of Justice ordered Poland to pay the EU’s executive body, the European Commission, one million euros, equivalent to $1.16 million, a day until the country complies with an interim order in July to scrap a disciplinary tribunal whose powers include the ability to fine or demote judges.

European Union leaders pressured a defiant Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki Thursday to fall back into line on recognizing that EU law trumps national decision-making, hoping that dialogue will stave off a fundamental crisis in the bloc, the Associated Press reported. Morawiecki instead painted a picture of an overbearing union treating its 27 member nations as mere provinces, usurping ever more powers and feeling free to impose its values at will against the wishes of sovereign peoples.

Poland's prime minister repeatedly came under criticism during a tense debate in the European Parliament on Tuesday, with the EU's chief executive warning Warsaw that its challenge to the supremacy of the 27-nation bloc's law would not go unpunished, Reuters reported. "You're arguments are not getting better. You're just escaping the debate," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, visibly exasperated with Poland's Mateusz Morawiecki after more than four hours of back-and-forth.

Tens of thousands of protesters marched through Warsaw and other Polish cities late Sunday to oppose a court ruling that European Union legal judgments have become incompatible with the Polish constitution, a decision protesters fear could prompt Poland to follow the U.K. out of the bloc, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The European Union moved Tuesday to force Poland to comply with the rulings of Europe’s top court with plans to seek daily fines against the nationalist government in Warsaw in a long-running dispute over Poland’s judicial system, the Associated Press reported. In a rare move, the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, said it wants the European Court of Justice to “impose financial penalties on Poland to ensure compliance” with one of the tribunal’s orders from July.

The government leaders of Poland and the neighboring Czech Republic held intensive talks Tuesday in an attempt to solve a years-long dispute that resurfaced recently over a Polish coal mine, the Associated Press reported. The Czech government says the brown coal Turow mine, located in southwestern Poland, near the Czech and German borders, is draining groundwater from communities and causing other environmental harm to Czech citizens.