The conservative candidate in the upcoming Polish presidential election has vowed to uphold protections for workers and families, oppose the EU’s climate policies, and respect Christian values.
Karol Nawrocki made the pledge in an agreement signed with Poland’s largest trade union, Solidarity (Solidarność), the organisation which played a central role in bringing communist rule to an end in the country in the 1980s.
In return for the support of Solidarity, which has hundreds of thousands of members, Nawrocki said that if he is elected Poland’s next president, he would not allow the retirement age to be raised (60 years for women, 65 for men), he would defend the minimum wage, the Sunday trading ban, promote economic patriotism, support the public health service, and protect Polish agriculture.
Nawrocki said he would also strive to maintain social benefits for families and respect Christian values.
He also vowed to limit the negative effects of the EU’s Green Deal and to seek to hold a climate referendum. “I guarantee that I will be a defender of the Polish forester, farmer, and miner, and until we arrive at the most flexible and stable source of energy—nuclear—I will not allow Polish mines to be destroyed,” he added.
Nawrocki has also committed to holding a national referendum on the European Green Deal, asserting that it jeopardises the livelihood of Polish farmers and urban residents alike.
While the role is mostly ceremonial, the president in Poland has the opportunity to veto bills, a function which can then only be overruled by a three-fifths majority in parliament.
The current president, Andrzej Duda, an ally of the conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, has for the past year tried to push back on the current government’s liberal agenda. Duda’s second five-year mandate ends this year and he is not eligible to run for office again.
Karol Nawrocki, a historian by profession, is an independent candidate supported by PiS. He has said that as a Christian and a Catholic, he supports Poland’s strict abortion laws and opposes same-sex civil partnerships, and he has declared the need to defend traditional social values.
According to the latest opinion polls, among the many candidates who have entered the race, Nawrocki and Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski—nominated by the governing liberal Civic Coalition—will go through to the second round of voting.
The first round will take place on May 18th, with the runoff scheduled for June 1st.
At the Solidarity event on Thursday, union leader Piotr Duda said he would encourage its hundreds of thousands of members, their families and all like-minded citizens to vote for Nawrocki.
Nawrocki himself noted that Solidarity, a symbol of Polish democracy and anti-communism, had originally emerged in 1980 in part because “the colonial, communist authorities could not cope with either the Polish economy or the lives of normal Poles … and unfortunately things look very similar in the new circumstances in 2025” under the current government.
