Large trade union protest in Warsaw against EU climate policies

A large protest against the European Union’s climate policies has been held in Warsaw today, organised by the Solidarity trade union and attended by leading figures from Law and Justice (PiS), the main opposition party to Donald Tusk’s pro-EU government.

They argue that the EU’s Green Deal will “destroy” the Polish economy, causing particular harm to farmers and industrial workers.

At noon, protesters began to gather in Castle Square, from where they marched through the city to parliament.

They waved banners saying “Down with the Green Deal” and “Let Brussels eat worms; we prefer pork chop and potatoes”. The latter is a reference to claims that EU policies aim to end traditional meat production and encourage the consumption of insects.

In one section of the march, a large figure of the Grim Reaper wearing the EU flag as an armband was paraded on a trailer.

Organisers claimed in advance that as many as 200,000 people were expected to attend. But Onet, a leading news website, estimates based on aerial photographs of the march that between 25,000 and 30,000 have taken part.

“We are going to Warsaw to oppose the EU’s climate policy,” declared Dominik Kolorz, a regional leader of Solidarity, which is Poland’s largest group of trade unions, from Lower Silesia.

“Contrary to popular belief, the Green Deal does not only affect farmers, it affects each of us, workers in all industries, and all Polish families,” he added, quoted by financial news service Money.pl.

“We are already paying more for energy, the sad effects of climate policy are already visible in the automotive industry, where ever more plants are announcing collective layoffs. The entire Green Deal is an attack on the freedom of each of us.”

Kolorz pledged that today’s protest was “just the beginning” of a long campaign. “We want to force Polish politicians to thoroughly revise the Green Deal, or preferably throw it into the bin,” he said, adding that Solidarity will table a proposal to organise a national referendum on the issue.

The European Green Deal is a set of proposals by the European Commission that aim to make the EU carbon neutral by 2050. It was approved by the European Parliament in 2020.

However, earlier this year, amid mass protests by Polish farmers against EU green policies, Tusk declared that the Polish government would seek to negotiate changes to the Green Deal that would soften its impact.

He said that “practically all” of its provisions relating to agriculture “must be suspended and withdrawn”.

PiS has expressed even stronger opposition to the plans. Last year, when the party was still in power, its leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, condemned the EU’s climate policies as “green communism”.

Last month, Kaczyński launched PiS’s campaign for the June European elections by declaring his party’s aim to “reject the Green Deal…in its present version”.

Today, Kaczyński and other senior PiS figures attended the Solidarity protest in Warsaw. In a video shared by the party, Kaczyński declared that the Green Deal would “destroy Poland”.

In 2022, an EU-funded study found Poland to be the bloc’s least green member state. The country still produces around two thirds of its electricity from coal, which is by far the highest proportion in the EU.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Jacek Marczewski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.