Thousands in Warsaw Protest EU Climate Policy, Demand Referendum

The Referendum Push and Why It May Go Nowhere
The protest came roughly two weeks after right-wing President Karol Nawrocki formally submitted a motion to the Senate requesting the referendum. On paper, it sounds straightforward. In practice, the idea faces a steep uphill battle.

For the referendum to happen, the Senate must pass it with an absolute majority, with at least half of all senators present. The chamber is currently controlled by pro-European parties, and most observers expect them to shoot it down. Officials from the centrist governing coalition — which sits firmly in the opposing camp from Nawrocki — made their position clear during Senate proceedings, with a senior representative calling the proposal fundamentally flawed from the start.

There's also a deeper legal problem. Analysts and government figures have pointed out that, as an EU member state, Poland simply cannot walk away from the bloc's climate policies on its own. Doing so would put the country in direct violation of EU law — making the referendum, even if passed, largely symbolic at best. Nawrocki's chief of staff, Paweł Szefernaker, pushed back on that view Wednesday, urging senators to approve the motion and framing it as a matter of public sovereignty.

Solidarność's Shifting Identity
What adds an interesting layer to this story is who is leading the charge. Solidarność is no ordinary trade union. It played a defining role in dismantling communist rule in Poland back in 1989 — a historic chapter closely associated with its iconic leader, Lech Wałęsa. But the organization has shifted considerably since those transformative years of the 1980s and 90s. Today, it operates in close alignment with right-wing and nationalist political forces, a direction that marks a sharp departure from its earlier legacy. That evolution says a lot about how Poland's political landscape has changed — and how climate policy has become the latest fault line in that ongoing transformation.