European Politics

Many Poles were outraged by abortion restrictions put in place during the previous government. That doesn’t mean they agree on the path forward. More

When Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk formed a coalition government in 2023 committed to making “historic changes,” he promised to improve the country’s track record on women’s rights. Noticeably absent in the coalition’s agreement, however, was any specific wording on access to abortion, one of the most controversial issues under the previous government.

The coalition parties are united in their opposition to the conservative Law and Justice Party, PiS, which led the government for eight years. PiS weakened Poland’s democracy by undermining the independence of the judiciary and placing restrictions on the media, and it strained its relationship with the European Union. PiS also ushered in some of the strictest abortion laws in Europe, with the help of hand-picked judges from Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal.

Poland’s three main coalition partners – the Civic Coalition, the Third Way and The Left – all want to soften Poland’s near-ban on abortion. Yet they disagree on how this should happen and how far the changes should go, meaning the government is struggling to deliver on its campaign promises.

As a scholar of civil society in central Europe, I have followed abortion debates in Poland for years. Poles’ views of abortion are shaped by religious, historical, political and cultural factors that make legislative changes challenging, despite the fact that most Poles favor some change in the current laws.

From strict to stricter

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal made a significant change in Poland’s already strict abortion laws, prompting massive protests. The court removed the right to abortions because of birth defects, which had accounted for more than 90% of all abortions.

Since January 2021, abortion has been allowed only in cases of rape, incest or when a mother’s health is in danger. Under these laws, which also allowed the former government to arrest people for abortion-related activities, about half a dozen women experiencing pregnancy complications have died after being denied abortions.

A demonstrator holds a coat hanger, a symbol of self-induced abortion, on Nov. 18, 2020, during a protest against abortion restrictions.
AP Photo/Agata Grzybowska

In January 2024, the new government reversed PiS legislation from 2017 that required women to obtain a doctor’s prescription for over-the-counter emergency contraception, often called the morning-after pill. However, Polish President Andrzej Duda, an ally of PiS, vetoed the bill.

Church and culture

Sixty percent of the Polish population thinks abortion should be legal, according to a 2022 global survey by Ipsos. Less than 25%, however, are in favor of abortion being legal without any restrictions.

Those who oppose abortion are a vocal and well-organized group. On April 14, 2024, tens of thousands of people joined a National March for Life through Warsaw. Organizers estimated that at least 50,000 people participated, claiming that it was the largest Polish anti-abortion gathering in the 21st century.

Abortion opponents are supported by the Catholic Church, which remains a powerful institution in Poland despite declining church attendance. In 1992, weekly church attendance was about 70%; by 2021, it had decreased to 43%. Just a year later, another study found that only 30% of Polish Catholics regularly attend Sunday Mass.

Anti-abortion demonstrators in Warsaw march in April 2024 against the new government’s steps toward liberalizing Poland’s strict law.
AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski

At the same time, almost 70% of Poles say that God plays an important role in their life. Especially in smaller cities and rural areas, social and family activities tend to revolve around the church and religious holidays.

The Catholic Church’s close relationship with Polish national identity stems from the role it has played in the country’s history. Throughout the 19th century, when Polish lands were divided by its stronger neighbors, the Catholic faith allowed Poles to maintain their language and traditions. When Poland reemerged on the map after World War I, the church was the basis for unity as leaders struggled to create political, economic and social institutions.

During the communist period of 1947 to 1989, the church was a symbol of Polish independence in the face of Soviet attempts to impose atheist beliefs within its sphere of influence. Political analysts such as George Weigel maintain that the Catholic Church and Pope John Paul II, a native of Poland, were important to shaping anti-communist movements throughout the Soviet bloc.

Abortion rights activists react after Poland’s Parliament voted on April 12, 2024, to continue work on proposals to liberalize Poland’s strict abortion law.
AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski

Splintered support

This landscape of views on abortion and faith and Poland’s unique history explains why political support for various proposals is so fragmented.

Two of the government’s coalition parties, the Civic Coalition and the Left, favor abortion without restrictions until 12 weeks. The Third Way, itself a coalition of center-right parties, prefers to simply restore the right to abortion in the case of birth defects.

Third Way politicians claim that this “compromise” legislation has the support of many groups and so is more likely to be approved. The group has also called for a national referendum about whether to further loosen abortion restrictions. This proposal reflects the Third Way’s main political goal: to distinguish itself as an alternative to polarization and deadlock.

Regardless of which proposal the Legislature supports, Duda may veto the legislation. Conservative legislators are also well positioned to delay any reforms. Recently, the leader of PiS indicated that he is now in favor of softening the near-ban on abortion, but only if there is a change in Poland’s constitution – a lengthy process that is unlikely to receive enough support.

Almost all European countries have legalized abortion, although some maintain medical or regulatory procedures such as short wait times or permission from a parent or guardian. If this trend is any indication, Poland will indeed liberalize its abortion laws – and given the country’s national health care system, procedures will likely be paid for by the state. It will take time, however, and the battles will continue to be hard-fought. More

The shooting of Robert Fico was ‘politically motivated,’ authorities say. More

The assassination attempt against Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico has been widely condemned by world leaders as an attack on democracy.

In Slovakia, the violent act similarly saw a unified response from the country’s deeply divided political leaders. But how long this lasts is uncertain. Just as outgoing Slovakian president – and Fico rival – Zuzana Caputova called for an end to the “vicious circle of hatred and mutual accusations,” Fico allies lambasted the country’s media and opposition for whipping up tensions.

As an expert on politics in central Europe, I have been interested in how liberal social movements in Slovakia have reacted to the rise of populist rhetoric and policy that Fico exemplified. This research has laid bare not only the increasing move to the right of once center and center-right politicians, but also how this has helped create a polarized political environment.

Who is Robert Fico?

Robert Fico has long been a controversial figure in Slovakia, a central Eastern European country of about 5.4 million people and a member of the European Union.

A former member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Fico and his colleagues founded the Party SMER, or “Direction,” in the late 1990s as a leftist party that was critical of Slovakia’s right-wing government at the time. The party also maintained an anti-corruption message and used this to gain popularity in the early 2000s, becoming one of the most dominant parties in Slovak politics.

Fico first became prime minister in 2006. But it is since returning to power in 2012 that he has been seen as a polarizing figure in Slovak politics.

In 2018, Fico was forced to resign following the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée, Martina Kusnirova, in their apartment just outside of Bratislava, Slovakia’s capital.

Prior to his murder, Kuciak alleged that SMER was engaged in corruption involving the Italian Mafia and the embezzlement of EU funds. In 2020, five people, one of whom had links to political figures, were charged with the murders.

Fico has denied these corruption charges. Yet the murders and accusations of corruption led to mass protests against the government and continue to resonate today.

Polarized politics

Despite Fico’s resignation over the issue, the country continued to be politically polarized.

In 2019, Čaputová of the party Progressive Slovakia was elected as the first female president. But a year later, Slovakia saw the election of the most conservative parliament in modern Slovak history.

This pitted Caputova’s liberal agenda against the right-wing parties in government.

Right-wing parties have allied with the Catholic Church and conservative organizations to attack gender equality measures and LGBTQ+ rights and place restrictions on reproductive rights.

The focus on culture war issues has been accompanied by a coarsening of the political debate in Slovakia.

Hateful rhetoric is commonly used in political campaigns to oppose women’s rights, gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights. This rhetoric has contributed to further polarization.

Security personnel apprehend a suspected gunman after the shooting of Robert Fico.
RTVS/AFP via Getty Images

And even before the attack on Fico, there was evidence that the heightened rhetoric was developing into politically motivated violence. In 2022, two members of the LGBTQ+ community were murdered at a bar in Bratislava by a known supporter of the far right.

Nevertheless, Fico continued to rely on populist rhetoric opposing civil liberties in his 2023 election campaign.

By then, he had returned to the spotlight by opposing public health measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was followed by his widely publicized opposition to sending military aid to Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 invasion. At a time when some of Slovakia’s closest allies, such as Poland and Czechia, wholeheartedly supported Ukraine’s efforts against Russian aggression, Fico ran on a campaign of supporting Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin’s politics against the West.

This messaging proved popular and allowed him to return to power in 2023, with his populist party winning 23% of the vote and becoming the largest party in a right-wing coalition government.

An attack on democracy

Since returning to power, Fico has shown no desire to dial down the culture wars that have split Slovakian society. Rather, his primary focus has been on abolishing and restructuring government agencies and entities that have been critical of his policies.

In February 2024, he moved to shut down Slovakia’s anti-corruption body and abolish the special prosecutor’s office that investigates corruption – a decision that not only drew rebuke from the European Union but also brought Slovaks back out into the streets in protest.

He has also made moves to shut down Slovak Television and Radio, or STVR, and replace it with a state-run TV channel.

Taken together, Fico’s efforts to curb civil liberties and repress opposition have been seen as part of a process to transform Slovakia into an illiberal democracy, much in the mold of Orban’s Hungary.

There is much yet to learn about the motivations and circumstances surrounding the assassination attempt on Fico. But officials have said that it was “politically motivated,” linking it to his divisive policies.

Any display of political violence is, as world leaders have noted, an attempt to undermine democracy. In Slovakia, where political polarization is high, these divisive politics have been shown to, unfortunately, lead to violent outcomes. More

Ad-hoc responses to the situation in Ukraine don’t amount to a coherent vision. More

Some believe that the war in Ukraine has fundamentally changed Europe, giving birth to a different kind of European order. That is, it appears to be driving structural shifts in the way Europe is run and organised that extend well beyond the immediate imperative of helping Ukraine fight the war. European integration is deepening in some areas, like defence and security, and the EU looks set to extend its geographical borders to take in new members.

Reflecting this, EU leaders, politicians and writers typically compare the 2022 invasion with the inflection points of 1945 and 1989. Each of these put in place new organisations and rules that redefined European cooperation, politics, economics and security. The end of the cold war in 1989 was a catalyst for deeper European integration and opened the way to bringing many eastern European states into the EU.

Yet, the current process of re-ordering remains tentative. The EU collectively, and European governments individually, have agreed a significant amount of policy adjustment. In particular, governments have increased defence spending and the EU has launched dozens of new security initiatives. How far this constitutes a shift in the European order remains uncertain, however.

Many of the policy changes underway might be judged as welcome, necessary, and overdue so that Europe can adapt judiciously to the strategic imperatives of a more corrosive and fractious era. But the changes so far have been ad-hoc and expedient, bereft of any clear framework for structuring a new, post-war European order. They do not, in themselves, constitute a coherent or deeply rooted vision for a stronger and strategically adept Europe. Yet, this is what’s needed to address the challenges that the tragedy in Ukraine will leave in its wake.

European leaders meet in Brussels.
EPA/Olivier Hoslet

Some changes do point towards possible shifts in the European order. European borders are being redrawn to bring in new member states. After years of keeping Ukraine, Modlova and Georgia outside, the EU has concluded that it is strategically important to begin accession talks with these states. The EU has strengthened its commitments to democratic norms as the Russian invasion has made the threat of authoritarian power more painfully tangible. It has also accelerated many aspects of its climate transition policies in response to the conflict, which has demonstrated the urgency of weaning Europe off strategically costly hydrocarbon dependencies.

Yet governments and EU institutions remain in short-term crisis mode. The flurry of EU policy change has yet to translate into a clear overarching strategy for a redesign of the European order. For now, the idea that the war has “changed everything” in Europe looks like an unwarranted exaggeration.

A ‘geoliberal’ Europe

Despite multiple reform proposals, the basic institutional shape of the EU remains untouched. Countries currently hoping to join the EU are being kept waiting in drawn out, technocratic processes despite the dangers they face from Russia.

Governments have bolted increased defence spending onto existing EU policies in response to the war without clarifying how these relate to the union’s supposed core liberal and peace-oriented principles. European leaders now ritually boast that the EU has become a toughened geopolitical power because of its response to Ukraine, but this does not seem to extend to having a position on engagements in places like the Sahel or the conflict in Gaza.

If anything, the war’s cruel continuation may actually be weakening the foundations and core principles of European order in some senses. It presents challenges of such immediacy that it has forced individual governments into defensive measures that reflect their own immediate, individual interests. But these potentially militate against coordination between nations.

For now, the EU appears stuck in an “in-between” period. Many of the union’s old organising principles, like the notion of its blurred internal borders, are no longer fit for purpose but governments lack the necessary political conviction to usher in a clearly defined new order.

EU leaders need to move towards what might be termed a geoliberal Europe. As mapped out in my new book, this would reflect geopolitical reality but also the liberal and democratic values that are supposed to define Europe and supposedly sit at the heart of the war’s rationale. This would take Europe out of crisis mode and enable it to map out a new, post-war approach to order. While this is lacking, the day-to-day debates about whether the EU is “doing enough” to help Ukraine will lack the necessary strategic orientation and anchoring. More

The French have an ambivalent relationship to the European Union, expressing a strong feeling of European belonging on the one hand, and Euroscepticism toward institutions on the other. More

In less than two months, more than 400 million people will be eligible to vote in the European elections. If the record turnout of 2019 elections is anything to go by, many will be seizing their voting rights, allowing policy-makers to take the pulse of the continent’s politics as the far right continues to spread.

In the meantime, research can help us gauge Europeans’ feelings toward the European Union. A political scientist at Sciences Po Grenoble, I pored over the available data to find out what exactly my fellow citizens thought of the bloc.

The French’s growing suspicion toward Europe

If there is one takeaway from the 2023 Eurobarometer, it’s that the French no longer trust the Union. In the spring of 2023, only 34% had confidence in the EU, compared with 47% of Europeans. 48% say they are very pessimistic about the future of the Union, the highest percentage of the 27-country bloc. The French are also the most likely to rate the Union’s economy as poor (52% compared with an average 44% in Europe). Only 35% consider the €800 billion European economic recovery plan, NextGenerationEU, to be efficient, while 38% see it as inefficient. That said, 69% also judge the national economy as poor, and 46% feel that their living standards have got worse over the last 12 months. We can therefore explain these unfavourable figures both on the grounds of the French’s particular mistrust of Europe, but also of a rising general pessimism toward public institutions and policies.

Fair-weather friends

It’s worth going back in time to understand how the French got here. In 1957, the Treaty of Rome was signed, creating an economic market and customs union between the six founding countries of Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Until the early 1990s, French public opinion backed the agreement, which was intended to prevent war between Europeans and build peace by accelerating the economic growth and development of the allied countries.

Such optimism was helped by the fact that European integration was still in its infancy. Although France’s political elites greatly contributed to the fledging Union, it was not a major political issue. Public opinion left it to the elites, who first built a common agricultural policy and then developed initiatives in many other areas. Until the late 1980s, academics described this attitude as a “permissive consensus”.

During the 1970s, between 52% and 68% of French people questioned in the Eurobarometer surveys believed France’s membership of the European Union to be “a good thing”. Such strong support continued to rise in the early 1980s, reaching its peak in the autumn of 1987 (74%), when the Commission was chaired by one of the bloc’s founding fathers, Jacques Delors, and the Single European Act was adopted to boost the integration of member countries.

We have also been able to show that support for European integration was slightly stronger in times of economic prosperity and slightly weaker in times of economic crisis. European aspirations develop when the economy is doing well, both in France and in other countries. On the other hand, as soon as economies enter into choppy waters, there is a temptation for the nation states to withdraw. In short, citizens did not look up to the Union as a fix to the economy’s ups and downs. The situation may well have changed since then, after the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine showed that the Union can come to the rescue.

A turning point in the 1990s

Following on from the Single European Act, in 1992 the Maastricht Treaty puts European integration into practice across 17 areas policy areas. It carves out the principle of a future common currency as well as more integrated foreign and security policy. European citizenship is also introduced. Observers expected the treaty to be ratified fairly easily. But this was not the case. In June 1992, the treaty is approved in the French referendum by a very thin margin: with a relatively low abstention rate of 31.3% of registered voters, only 51% of French people vote yes, after an intense campaign in which the yes side lost a lot of ground, the referendum becoming in part a choice for or against President François Mitterrand. 60% of the working classes rejected it, while managers were largely in favour. This social divide is fairly constant, showing that the Union makes more sense to elites than to the working classes.

In the 1990s, the European question becomes increasingly politicised, as Euroscepticism took root. The majority of French people do not want France to leave the EU. However, they are sceptical of its policies and its mode of operation, with decisions that necessarily take a long time to adopt and a Brussels technocracy that exasperates many of the professionals who have to submit to it. Confidence in the European Union is often in the minority in half-yearly Eurobarometer surveys.

In 2004, the Union agrees to take in eight Eastern European countries, plus Cyprus and Malta. To adapt the bloc’s rules to this major change, the European Commission, parliament and heads of state negotiate a new treaty for the Constitution for Europe – a term that brings to mind the founding of a state.

The French’s European heart – and critical mind toward the EU

A new referendum is held in 2005 to ratify it. To many observers’ astonishment, the “No” wins at 54.7%, with only 30.7% of voters abstaining. The pre-election polls had given the “Yes” side a majority of at least 60% of the vote. Like in 1992, the campaign whipped up many fears. Some on the left argued the text would bring in deregulation and called for a far more social Europe, while a (small) section of the right criticised the loss of national sovereignty and the possible entry of Turkey into the Union. The results showed the gap between the electorate and a political class that is very broadly in favour of stronger European institutions, since more than 90% of French MPs had approved the text a few months earlier.

Since then, while the French remain attached to the existence of the EU, they are often very negative about the policies put in place. In 2019, 65% said that the Union was not working effectively. In the latest Eurobarometer, in autumn 2023, 55% said they were attached to the EU and 62% felt they were European citizens. 38% have a positive image of the EU (28% have a negative image) and 36% are unable to say where they stand, showing that the bloc’s image is still rather blurry among citizens. The distinction between a generally pro-European feeling of belonging and a much more critical perception of European policy still defines the French’s relationship with the EU. Only 45% are satisfied with the way democracy works in the EU, and only 35% say they trust it, against 55% who don’t.

However, there is a paradox: between 60 and 77% of the French say they are in favour of common public policies on defence and security, energy, common trade policy, migration, health and a common foreign policy. The demand for Europe is strong, but the policies being pursued are not satisfactory, and many would like to see national sovereignty better preserved. In 2022, 58% of French people felt that “Our country’s decision-making powers must be strengthened, even if this means limiting those of Europe”. More