Rafał Trzaskowski, mayor of Warsaw and candidate for the Polish presidential election, discusses the need for European nations to increase defense spending, the relationship between the United States and Poland, the next presidential election and world trade.
Poland will vote in a presidential runoff on Sunday. The country is one of the few economic successes in Europe.
Its economy increases much faster than some of the biggest economies. It increased by 2.9% last year, eclipping 2.8% growth in the United States and criticized the three largest economies in Europe with less than 0.2% for Germany and more than 1.1% for France and the United Kingdom
Poland’s economy has become 11 times larger since 1986, almost twice as fast as the United States during the same period.
“Last year or two saw a boom, and he obtained advertising,” said Oxford’s principal economist, Mateusz Urban, Mateusz Urban, Oxford Economics in Warsaw, Poland, Fox Business. “There is really a European tiger at the door of Germany.”
The candidate supported by Trump seeks to win the Polish presidency in the European vital elections
Karol Nawrocki, candidate for the Polish president, welcomed supporters in Gdańsk on May 18, 2025. (Mateusz Slodkowski / AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
The success is due in part to the unleashing of the human capital of Poland as well as well -known Polish work ethics. In addition to that, Donald Tusk winning the role of the Prime Minister in 2023, taking over from the right and justice law party, helped. Before Tusk, the government was targeted and sanctioned by the European Commission for complaints that it did not have an independent judicial system. Critics also wondered why Tusk escaped sanctions for the closing of certain Polish media.
Now Poland will choose a new president in a runoff between the center on the left and the right wing. After the initial vote earlier this month, there are only two candidates, the mayor of Warsaw Rafal Trzaskowski, a left-wing candidate, and Karol Nawrocki, supported by the right of right and justice.
Karol Nawrocki, on the left, and Rafal Trzaskowski are runoff for the president of Poland while the country goes to the polls on Sunday. (Getty Images / Getty Images)
On Thursday, Trzaskowski led 48% to 47% compared to Nawrocki, according to a survey of polls published in Politico. The two candidates are statistically in the elbow and the neck, but whatever happens, one of them will succeed the current president.
“”[If Trzaskowski] Winning the elections, the government and the presidency would be a pro-European union “,” Ben Habib, a former co-chief of the British reform party, told Fox Business. “There would be no checks inherent in the legislative program.”
A man wears a “Make Poland Great Again” cap while attending Independence March, celebrating the 106th anniversary of Poland Ret Regaining Independence, in Warsaw on November 11, 2024. (Batata Zawrzel / Nurphoto via Getty Images / Getty Images)
However, this could also go in the other direction if the presidency goes to Nawrocki. “Although the presidency in Poland is largely ceremonial, the result of the elections with support or hindering the reform program aligned by the EU government of the EU,” said Elias Haddad, a strategist for senior markets at Brown Brothers Harriman in London in Fox Business.
“The president has a veto right and Tusk has no majority of three fifths in the SEJM (Lower House) to cancel a veto,” said Haddad.
The interest of interest in the competition was Trump’s white house, which supports Nawrocki. Indeed, earlier this month, he met President Trump at the White House as well as the secretary of the DHS, Noem, who was at CPAC in Poland, where she also gave him the support.
The Polish government provides compulsory military training for adult men
There is at least one similarity between the two candidates. They want to reduce taxes.
“It is easier to make promises when you are not in charge,” said Urban, principal economist at Oxford Economics in Poland. “The difference is in form and not the idea.”
He said that a Nawrocki victory would exert much more pressure on budgetary stability because the tax reduction would probably be more steep than what Trzaskowski offers.
Consumers walk through a shopping center in Warsaw, the capital of Poland, on July 4, 2024. (Dominika Zarzycka / Nurphoto via Getty Images / Getty Images)
One or the other promise of lower taxes could be a dream given its enormous expenses in the past four years. Last year, Poland’s defense expenses reached 4.2% of GDP, the highest percentage of any member of NATO, and that spending led in part to an annual budget deficit of 6.6% of GDP last year, against 1.8% in 2021, according to economics. A large part of the expenses went to the defense budget after Russia has invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
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“The EU will do everything he can to win Trzaskowski, but the increase in dissatisfaction and the negative impact of EU policies like the Green New Deal and the 2030 Agenda could give power to the nationalist candidate,” said Daniel Lacalle, chief economist in Tresis in Spain, told Fox Business Digital.
