Poland Faces Barrage as Defiant Leaders Collide With Europe

  • Prime minister defends laws on top court and media freedom
  • Bonds and zloty pare losses but investors wary after downgrade

Beata Szydlo. Photographer: Piotr Malecki/Bloomberg

Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

There’s a new combative force in Poland, and the world just took notice.

After almost a decade of harmony with the European Union mainstream and inexorable economic growth fueled by free-market reforms, the nine-week-old government in Warsaw is at the center of the continent’s latest standoff. Investors and credit rating agencies are altering the way they look at the country.