Poland is back. Not so long ago, the country was seen as an effigy of democratic backsliding, rather than a post-communist success story. In 2017, the European Commission made its first use of the Article 7 procedure against Poland over concerns about eroding separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary. On the campaign trail in 2020, Joe Biden warned about ‘what’s happening from Belarus through Poland and Hungary and the rise of totalitarian regimes in the world’. In doing so, he placed the Polish government in the company of some of the worst dictators on the planet.
But within days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Poland managed to reclaim its place as a sober regional power. It ditched the excesses of its recent past in favour of a laser-sharp focus on building a global coalition to help Ukraine succeed.
If that sounds like an overstatement, it shouldn’t. By mid-April alone, the Polish government handed over military aid worth over €1.5
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