The Right Dominates Poland’s Autumn of Ideas and Events

Poland’s busy autumn conference season has revealed a telling asymmetry. On one side, conservative and centrist circles have spent October and the beginning of November trading ideas about statecraft, strategy, education, and the economy. On the other, the liberal Left—reunited under a refreshed banner—projected unity but little programmatic detail. The juxtaposition hints at where the intellectual energy is building for the second half of Donald Tusk’s term.

The XV Poland, the Great Project (Polska Wielki Projekt) Congress in Warsaw, organized annually since 2011 by conservative circles (and this year, also with the ECR group), returned to its roots with exhaustive panels on hard subjects and promotion of Polish culture. Among others, education was featured particularly prominently, signalling a right-wing desire to reclaim public schools from recent sweeping changes introduced by Barbara Nowacka, the unapologetic left-liberal minister of education. Reforms like the effective abolishment of homework and standardization of curriculum in accordance with the radically progressive vision of the so-called European Education Area have been heavily criticized, and arguments were made for reintroducing classical and formative elements into public education. The agenda’s range of issues showed a Right that thinks holistically about contemporary public challenges.

More importantly, Law and Justice (PiS) staged its two-day “Myśląc Polska / Thinking Poland” convention in Katowice, notable for scale as much as content: multiple plenaries and well over a hundred specialist panels running across policy domains like healthcare, education, economy, and defense. The PiS pitched it as a brainstorming first step toward a refreshed program for the next election cycle. Intellectual range was real—sessions dedicated to a search for the Polish spiritual and cultural uniqueness ran alongside technically dense debates. Unfortunately, the impact of the event’s breadth was somehow blunted by the resurfacing of some PiS government faces the Polish public associates with past excesses, especially notorious right-wing propagandists from state media. However, PiS’s credibility remains its soft underbelly, reminding conservatives that vision only wins if ethics don’t lose. The party’s long-term gains from the event may take time to materialize, but for now, diehard right-wing segments of its electoral base from the most conservative east of the country are being chipped away by Crown (Konfederacja Korony Polskiej), led by controversial MEP Grzegorz Braun. 

The Poznań Economic Congress, organized by the non-partisan Poznań Institute, provided an unusual tableau: Centrist Marshal of the Polish Sejm Szymon Hołownia sharing space with President Karol Nawrocki and former PM Mateusz Morawiecki—a lineup seldom seen outside televised showdowns. It was Morawiecki, however, who used his time in Poznań to sketch his Europe-spanning political and economic vision, showcasing futuristic conservatism and a European posture for the ECR he now chairs: a multi-speed EU with layered, voluntary integration replacing standardization programs currently enforced by EU bureaucrats; an “economic NATO” to harden the continent’s industrial and supply-chain security as well as re-establish economically friendly relations with the United States; and a ‘Powered by Poland’ agenda to push domestic added value. The setting mattered: a regional but rapidly growing institute, a cross-camp stage, and a message pitched beyond daily skirmishes. However, besides Hołownia (already treated with a palpable distrust by mainstream coalition partners), the leading figures of the liberal side were notably absent from the event. 

This year’s Krynica Forum—with the Jagiellonian Club among substantive partners—functioned as a national ideas fair. It delivered long-awaited debates: Morawiecki vs Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz (current minister for funds and regional policy) on statecraft, and Krzysztof Bosak (nationalist and opposition deputy marshal of the Sejm) vs Adrian Zandberg (socialist leader from Razem Party) on Poland’s future course. An in-depth interview with Law and Justice Chairman Jarosław Kaczyński underlined the understanding of contemporary challenges by the senior leader of the Polish right. What the forum did not offer was the top tier of Civic Platform/KO leadership—neither Tusk nor Trzaskowski—leaving the stage to PiS, other opposition figures, and ministers from the smaller coalition parties willing to defend their policy in open sparring. The effect was to cast the Right (broadly defined) or minor formations from the Left or center as those more eager (and capable) for long-form argument. 

Simultaneously with the PiS convention in Katowice, Civic Platform and its closest allies—neoliberal Nowoczesna and left-liberal Inicjatywa Polska—gathered in Warsaw, where the parties dissolved into Civic Coalition (Koalicja Obywatelska – KO) as the umbrella brand, strengthening the unity of the ruling coalition’s core. The event worked as a party-management exercise but demonstrably underwhelmed as a programmatic set piece. Tusk’s rhetoric again invoked Manichean motives and accused the opposition of working for Russian interests—consistent themes of his premiership—but beyond appeals to vigilance and traditional accusations, little in the way of detailed legislative architecture materialized on the day.

This is not the end of events for the national conservatives. November 11—the Polish Day of Independence—gathers around 100,000 people from all over the country for the largest annual street mobilization to participate in the Independence March. This year’s slogan—“One Nation—Strong Poland”—is a simple statement of majoritarian civic nationalism. The event, which used to face accusations of being a far-right, fascist rally in the previous decade and was even attacked by police strike teams in the previous Tusk era (2011-2015), has successfully dug in as the leading event of the day and is now being joined by leading figures of the Right in the country. Most importantly, President Nawrocki himself is confirmed to attend what symbolically yokes the state ceremony to a mass civic rite of the national right.

Taken together, this autumn’s calendar suggests an asymmetry of purpose, as the Right and parts of the center are simultaneously busy on ideational housekeeping, revisiting governance, education, defense, and culture in conference venues, as well as proposing strategic reframing for the country or even the continent and, finally, standing up for debate. The results do not offer a finished manifesto, but it looks and sounds like a promising pre-program process for PiS as well as for the whole right. 

By contrast, KO has made a different bet—prioritizing unity and brand architecture over detailed content—which may be defensible for a governing camp hoping to mobilize their voters by offering a strong unified front against the resurging Right. The polls have indeed recently shown a rise of support for Tusk, cementing his first place; however, mostly at the expense of his coalition allies, who are expected to win no seats in the next election. However, by focusing on devouring his partners, the liberal prime minister effectively cedes the season’s ‘ideas runway’ to his outright opponents. If that pattern holds—debates and marches on one side, with only managerial messaging and fearmongering on the other—the intellectual weather could tilt toward conservatives as Poland enters the midterm stretch. 

Whether the intellectual and eventful mobilization converts into votes and enduring momentum will turn on two parallel tests: whether the Right can bind ambitious ideas to clean hands, and whether the government can translate organizational unity into a persuasive, detailed plan.