Polish faith in EU membership drops 11%

By Jo Harper

WARSAW (AA) – Support for Poland’s EU membership has dropped 11% in the last three years, according to the results of a new poll.

Asked whether the advantages of Poland's EU membership outweigh the disadvantages, 53.5% said the advantages, 16.7% the disadvantages, and 24.7% said they were about equal, in the IBRiS poll done for Polish daily Rzeczpospolita.

In the previous study in 2020, the number of Euro-enthusiasts was 11% higher, while the percentage of Eurosceptics remains unchanged.

For the main advantages of EU membership, Poles pointed to the opening of borders between countries (32.2%), access to EU funds (21.3%), and the increase in Poland's security (24.7%). They also praised the opportunity to study outside Poland.

The biggest perceived disadvantages are the EU imposing laws that Poland must follow (33.8%), unequal treatment of countries (30.5%), migration (12.5%), and the use of Poland as a cheap labor force (4.6%).

In 2020, 47% of then-ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party voters said advantages related to EU membership outweighed the disadvantages. In the latest survey, only 17% of PiS voters said that.

During the general election campaign last fall, PiS politicians attacked the EU, which had frequently been at odds with the PiS administration. PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski even suggested that Poland's continued presence in the bloc was at stake.

According to an analysis by Pekao bank, Poland is the largest beneficiary of EU enlargement. Its GDP doubled between 2004 and 2022 and it increased its share in EU trade from 3% to 6%.