Brexit Is a Worrying Lesson for Poland
The country gets more money from the EU than anywhere else. Yet it’s a key battleground in this month’s European elections.
An anti-EU rally in Warsaw on May 1.
Photographer: Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images
The blue European Union flags with their circles of gold stars were conspicuous by their absence in the room used to brief the media at the prime minister’s office in Warsaw.
It was 2015, just weeks after the nationalist Law & Justice party triumphed in Polish elections. The new government said it was time to give more prominence to Poland’s red-and-white colors. It spent the next three years transforming the country into one of the EU’s most rebellious members from one of its most loyal. The flags have since been put back, though a new word has entered the political lexicon: “Polexit.”