Poland

Russia will cut off the gas to Poland and Bulgaria on Wednesday in a major escalation in the standoff between Moscow and Europe over energy supplies and the war in Ukraine, Bloomberg News reported. Moscow is making good on a threat to halt gas supplies to countries that refuse President Vladimir Putin’s new demand to pay for the fuel in rubles. The European Union has rejected the demand in principle but now payment deadlines are starting to fall due, governments across Europe need to decide whether to accept Putin’s terms or lose crucial supplies -- and run the risk of energy rationing.

Poland is imposing sanctions on 50 Russian oligarchs and companies, the interior minister said on Tuesday, as it seeks to increase pressure on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reported. Poland this month passed a law allowing it to freeze the assets of Russian entities and ban imports of coal from Russia, above and beyond sanctions imposed jointly by European Union countries.

Europe’s top court ruled on Wednesday that the European Union could withhold money for member countries that have curtailed the independence of their democratic institutions, marking a potentially costly defeat for Hungary and Poland, the Wall Street Journal reported. The ruling, by the EU’s European Court of Justice, gives the bloc more power to clamp down on governments accused of purging their judiciary or weakening anti-corruption watchdog agencies.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Tuesday announced a second round of sales tax cuts as part of the right-wing government’s efforts to fight inflation after it reached a 21-year high last month, the Associated Press reported. Morawiecki blamed surging consumer prices on high energy costs, saying they are the result of Russian gas prices and the European Union’s policy on greenhouse gas emissions.

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.