Poland in Turmoil as New Government Takes Steps to Restore Rule of Law 

Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) is badly adapting to the role of opposition, reacting with fury to moves by the month-old new coalition government to fire PiS functionaries from the public media, while the party’s two ex-ministers are sent to jail for past abuses of power.

Upcoming on Visegrad Insight:

• Aleksandra Klitina examines what challenges are in store for Ukraine in 2024.

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• The EU joined the US, UK and Japan in congratulating the independence-minded president-elect of Taiwan, Lai Ching-te, after he won a closely watched election on Saturday. China’s response and Lai’s first comments were conciliatory, signalling Beijing is for now reluctant to create another flashpoint in the tense international situation.
• President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will seek to rally support for Ukraine at the annual Davos forum in Switzerland on Tuesday. The fourth round of talks on Ukraine’s 10-point peace plan finished in Davos without any progress.
• EU diplomats will discuss sending a joint naval mission to the Red Sea to protect shipping from Houthi attacks. Most of the traffic going through the Red Sea is bound for and from Europe.
• The EU will soon discuss creating a 100 billion euro defence fund to beef up the bloc’s under-invested armaments sector, Industry Commissioner Thierry Breton said. Click here to learn more about European collective defence
• The move comes as EU governments contemplate the prospect of Donald Trump’s return to power next year. Breton revealed Trump told Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in 2020 that he would “never” come to Europe’s defence if it was attacked.
• While disparaging NATO and Europe before, Trump is unlikely to change President Joe Biden’s policy of boosting US arms production, as envisaged by the Pentagon’s newly announced shift in industrial armaments policy.
• EU investigators will inspect three Chinese electric vehicle carmakers as part of a probe into whether they benefit from competition-distorting state subsidies, Reuters reported.
• Exports from Poland, Czech Republic and Germany to Kyrgyzstan have soared since March 2022, which suggests they are a way of bypassing sanctions on Moscow, according to Robin Brooks of the International Institute of Finance.
• Speculation is rife about who might replace Charles Michel as head of the EU council from July, with Mario Draghi, the former Italian PM and EBC head, ex-Finnish PM Sanna Marin and outgoing Dutch PM Mark Rutte seen as potential contenders.

Compromise on EU funding for Ukraine on horizon

UKRAINE