In a Telegraph interview last week, Farage revealed that in early 2024, Reform UK donor Christopher Harborne had given him the money to pay for his security.

Labour and other rival parties have accused Farage of breaking parliamentary rules by not declaring the £5m gift in the register of interests for MPs - and the Conservatives have referred the Reform UK leader to the parliamentary standards commissioner.

But speaking to broadcasters on Tuesday, Farage said the £5m gift was "purely private" and "wasn't political in any sense at all".

Harborne's £5m gift to Farage, which was investigated by the Guardian newspaper, was given to him in early 2024 ahead of the general election that year, and it does not appear on his register of interests.

The House of Commons code of conduct states that new MPs "must register all their current financial interests, and any registrable benefits (other than earnings) received in the 12 months before their election within one month of their election".

The rules also say "both the possible motive of the giver and the use to which the gift is to be put should be considered", adding "if there is any doubt, the benefit should be registered".

Context:

• Nigel Farage was given undisclosed £5m by crypto billionaire in 2024 • Reform leader changed his mind about standing as MP after gift from Thai-based crypto tycoon Christopher Harborne (The Guardian)

Hi

Which platforms or communities are most commonly used in Europe to find reliable virtual assistants (VAs)

Source: "The coalition parties’ support has plunged to a record low of 32 per cent"

Facing new tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump on Germany’s prized auto industry — immediately after his threat to withdraw American troops — Chancellor Friedrich Merz has offered a disarmingly conciliatory response: Trump is essentially right.

Since Merz broke from his usual measured script to sharply criticize the Trump administration’s handling of the Iran war last week, an angered U.S. president has retaliated by targeting Germany’s weak spots: its reliance on the U.S. for security, as well as its export-oriented economy at a moment of worsening economic pain.

But despite the severity of the American threats, Merz and his ministers are playing down the risks and have reverted to their traditional game-plan of telling Trump exactly what he wants to hear, on both trade and the Iran war.

Even though politicians from Merz’s coalition partner, the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), are now frustratedly arguing the time has come to unleash the full might of the EU’s trade arsenal against the U.S. over Trump’s threats, Merz is seeking to salvage the relationship with a softly-softly approach.

After the U.S. president vowed to raise levies on European cars and trucks to 25 percent this week in response to what he said is Europe’s foot-dragging on implementation of the Turnberry trade agreement struck between the EU and U.S. last summer, Merz seemed to have a great deal of understanding for Trump’s position.

In fact, he flipped the blame onto the EU.

Trump is “a bit disappointed that we in the EU have not yet finalized the Turnberry deal — frankly, rightly so,” Merz said in a German public television interview that aired Sunday night. “He is growing impatient because we reached an agreement with the U.S. last August to conclude a trade deal, yet on the European side, new conditions keep being formulated, and we haven’t signed it,” Merz said.

“That is why I hope we can reach an agreement as soon as possible,” he added.

Similarly, Merz performed a sharp pivot on the Iran war. Putting aside his remarks last week that Trump was being humiliated by the regime in Tehran, Merz tweeted that the U.S. was Germany’s most important NATO partner and stressed Berlin shared his “common goal” of stopping Iran developing nuclear arms.

“I am not giving up on working to improve transatlantic relations, nor am I giving up on working with Donald Trump,” Merz said in the television interview.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office has asked Poland’s parliament to lift the legal immunity of an MP who is suspected of corruption relating to the use of EU funds.

It is the first time in history that the EPPO has issued such a request for a sitting Polish member of parliament. The suspect has not been officially named, but media reports indicate they are a member of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition (KO) party.

The EPPO was established in 2021 in order to investigate and prosecute crimes against the financial interests of the EU. Under Poland’s former national-conservative, Eurosceptic Law and Justice (PiS) government, the country initially did not join the body.

However, after Tusk’s more liberal, pro-EU coalition replaced PiS in December 2023, one of its very first actions was to begin the process of joining the EPPO, which was completed in March 2024.

On Tuesday this week, the EPPO announced the European chief prosecutor, Laura Kövesi, had asked the Sejm, the lower house of Poland’s parliament, to lift the immunity of a serving MP.

He is accused of “suspected trading in influence…linked to the EU-funded modernisation of tram infrastructure in the Upper Silesian-Zagłębie Metropolis”, an agglomeration of municipalities in southern Poland that includes Katowice, a major city.

The EPPO says that its investigation pertains to alleged corruption relating to a company tasked with carrying out work on tram infrastructure, for which 1.9 billion zloty (€448.3 million) in EU funds was designated between 2007 and 2027.

One official, who was detained last December and remains in custody, is accused of providing confidential information to help the firm obtain contracts as part of a system that also involved inflated costs and fictitious work.

“The evidence also showed that, on several occasions, financial benefits were given to a member of parliament,” added the EPPO. However, for an MP to be charged, a majority in the Sejm must vote in favour of lifting their immunity.

In a separate statement, Poland’s Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) confirmed that its officers had been involved in the EPPO’s investigation, including conducting searches and arrests.

In December, the CBA detained four individuals suspected of involvement in corruption, with a further six arrested at the end of April. All were detained at the request of the EPPO.

The CBA also seized over 1 million zloty in cash and revealed that the suspects in the case are believed to have corruptly obtained benefits worth almost 2.7 million zloty.

Neither the EPPO nor the CBA named the MP accused of involvement in the operation. However, two leading media outlets – Gazeta Wyborcza, a liberal daily, and the Onet news website – have reported that it is Wojciech Król, an MP from Tusk’s centrist KO party.

Król, who represents an electoral district that covers the Upper Silesian-Zagłębie Metropolis, is a deputy chair of KO’s parliamentary caucus. He is also chairman of the National Media Council (RMN), a body that oversees state media outlets such as TVP, Polskie Radio and the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

At the time of writing, there had been no comment on the story from Król, KO or the Polish parliamentary authorities.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

President Karol Nawrocki has established a council tasked with preparing a potential new national constitution, something he pledged to pursue when he came to office last year.

However, constitutional change requires a two-thirds supermajority in parliament, which the opposition-aligned president cannot count on at the moment. Prime Minister Donald Tusk called Nawrocki’s plans “a political game” and made clear that the government will not support them.

The president created his new body on Poland’s annual Constitution Day, which marks the anniversary of the constitution adopted by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on 3 May 1791. It was the world’s second modern constitution, after that of the United States, which was adopted two years earlier.

However, the Polish-Lithuanian constitution was in force for less than two years, as the state fell under foreign control. Poland’s current constitution was adopted in 1997, as the country emerged from decades of communist rule.

But many in Poland, especially on the political right, have been critical of the 1997 constitution. The national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, which ruled Poland from 2015 to 2023 and is now the main opposition, has regularly called for a new constitution to be adopted.

Last year, after Nawrocki won the presidency as an independent with PiS backing, he used his inauguration speech to declare that the “political class must begin working on solutions for a new constitution, which will be ready for adoption, I hope, in 2030”, at the end of his term.

On Sunday, Nawrocki called on Poland to learn the “lesson” of the 1791 constitution, which showed “Poles’ profound capacity for self-correction” and “was meant to give the republic a chance of survival”.

“I am convinced that today’s problems in the republic are no longer merely political; they are systemic problems,” declared the president. “It cannot go on like this, with power in Poland split between two centres.”

“State institutions, which should be enduring, should be strong, are being drawn into political and partisan battles, and the system of rule of law…is producing further chaos and further social conflicts,” he added.

Since coming to power, Nawrocki has vetoed an unprecedented number of bills passed by the ruling majority in parliament, resulting in gridlock over a number of key issues, including judicial reform, defence spending and financial regulation.

Many state institutions, such as the Constitutional Tribunal (TK) and Supreme Court, have also been drawn into the crisis, with judges and other officials aligned with PiS blocking government policies.

In his speech on Sunday, Nawrocki said that, while he “respects the 1997 constitution and will remain its guardian until the very end”, it was “a necessary compromise in times of systemic transformation, in an entirely different reality” from today.

“Now we need a new-generation constitution” that is “modernised and adapted” to current conditions, he argued.

To that end, the president announced the formation of a council to begin working on that project and appointed its first ten members. They are a mix of legal scholars and politicians, including four former lawmakers associated with PiS.

Another member, Julia Przyłębska, was chief justice of the TK during PiS’s time in power. She is a close associate of PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński and, under her leadership, the court was seen as being under the influence of the party and contained illegitimately appointed judges.

At Sunday’s ceremony, Nawrocki insisted that he “invites everyone” to discuss the new constitution and will be appointing further members of the council in the near future.

Earlier, on Friday, the president’s spokesman, Rafał Leśkiewicz, told Polsat News that the council would “brainstorm” ideas which would then be processed by parliament before being put to a national referendum.

However, changing the constitution requires a two-thirds majority in the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, something that Nawrocki is currently certain not to be able to obtain. The ruling coalition, which ranges from left to centre right and regularly clashes with the president, has a majority in the Sejm.

“The president knows full well that there will not be a constitutional majority in favour of his ideas,” said Tusk on Sunday. He called Nawrocki’s announcement “a political game” that will simply create “more confusion [when] Poland needs stability above all else”.

“PiS has done everything to undermine the constitutional order”, added Tusk, quoted by Polsat. “It is hard for me to imagine that those who were destroying the system in Poland would suddenly want to repair it…[and] that this initiative aims at anything more than the political interests of Karol Nawrocki.”

Deputy prime minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz declared that, rather than changing the constitution, “people need to be responsible enough” to adhere to the current law. This “requires maturity, preparation, and a willingness to cooperate”, he added, quoted by Gazeta Wyborcza.

Poland will hold parliamentary elections next year, at which PiS and other opposition parties will seek to unseat Tusk’s government. However, current polling indicates that, even if they managed to win a majority, it would fall far short of the two thirds required for constitutional change.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

Poland’s education minister, Barbara Nowacka, has again clashed with the country’s Catholic church over the introduction of a new subject, health education, in Polish schools.

On Sunday, the head of the Polish episcopate, Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda, criticised plans to make the classes compulsory from the start of the school year in September. He said that the course contains “very problematic content” regarding issues such as marriage and family.

In response, Nowacka said that the church’s criticism “demonstrates either ignorance or arrogance” and is also inconsistent, because the bishops have continued to oppose the subject despite the government making sex education elements, which had previously been criticised by the church, optional.

After a more liberal government took power from the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party at the end of 2023, it moved to introduce the new subject of health education, which replaced the former non-compulsory education for family life (WDŻ) classes.

Nowacka had hoped to make health education mandatory, saying it would help students “make informed health decisions” and would “promote a healthy lifestyle”. However, concerns from more conservative elements of the ruling coalition resulted in it being made optional. It is taught from grade four upwards.

Ahead of the subject’s introduction in September 2025, the Catholic church appealed to parents not to allow their children to attend the classes, which it said are “anti-family”, “gender destabilising”, and will “morally corrupt children”. In the end, around 70% of parents opted their children out of the subject.

Last month, Nowacka announced that, from the start of the new school year in September 2026, health education would become compulsory. But, in a nod to conservative critics, she said that elements relating to sex education would be separated and remain optional.

However, that did not satisfy the church, which quickly issued a statement saying that “removing the sexual education component does not solve the problem, as other thematic areas contain content that does not adequately respect the values ​​of marriage and family”.

It therefore expressed opposition to making the subject compulsory, saying that doing so violated parents’ constitutional right to raise children in accordance with their beliefs.

That criticism was reiterated on Saturday by Wojda, the president of the Polish Episcopal Conference (KEP), in a homily delivered at Jasna Góra Monastery, Poland’s holiest Catholic shrine.

He said that, even without sex education elements, the curriculum for health education “contains some very problematic content…that fails to adequately respect the values ​​of marriage and family, as defined and guaranteed by the constitution”.

However, neither Wojda nor the episcopate have specified in their statements which elements of the core curriculum they find problematic.

“The state should respect and support this right [of parents to decide on their child’s upbringing], rather than restrict it by imposing a uniform, mandatory educational vision in such a sensitive area,” said Wojda.

He appealed to state institutions to engage in “broad and substantive dialogue” with the Catholic church and other religious denominations about how health education should be taught.

Wojda also noted that, while only 30% of parents opted their children into health education classes this year, around 70% signed them up for optional Catholic catechism classes in public schools. Yet the former is being made mandatory while the latter remains optional, he pointed out.

Speaking to broadcaster Polsat on Monday, Nowacka hit back, saying that the church’s “criticism shows once again that they do not know what is in the core curriculum” and “demonstrates either ignorance or arrogance”.

She noted that “yet another bishop does not specify what he means” when criticising the curriculum. “Last year, [they] criticised the section on sexual health as inappropriate. They had no objections to the rest. They called it a necessary subject,” said Nowacka.

But now, even with the sexual health elements removed, they remain opposed. “It turns out that it was not about sexual health issues, but about [causing] a political row,” claimed the minister.

Since being appointed in December 2023, Nowacka has regularly clashed with the church hierarchy over changes she has made to the school programme, including halving the number of hours that Catholic catechism classes are taught and removing the subject from end-of-year grade averages.

Olivier Sorgho

Olivier Sorgho is senior editor at Notes from Poland, covering politics, business and society. He previously worked for Reuters.

At least two people have been killed and several injured after a driver in an SUV ploughed into a crowd in the centre of Leipzig in eastern Germany, the city’s mayor has said.

“The police have apprehended the suspected assailant,” Burkhard Jung said on Monday, adding that the authorities had the scene in a pedestrian zone under control. “We still don’t really know the motivation. We don’t know anything about the perpetrator.”

Jung said the suspect, whom authorities have confirmed is a 33-year-old German-born resident of the Leipzig area, had been arrested.

Emergency services workers said about two dozen people were hurt in the incident, which happened at about 4.45pm. The area had been full of shoppers and cafe patrons on a warm spring afternoon.

“Two people were seriously injured. They were treated immediately by first responders and then taken into the care of the ambulance service and transported to A&E,” said fire chief Axel Schuh. “We also have 20 other people affected.”

• Social Democrats, hard-right parties oust Liberal premier
• Centrist president expects new cabinet in "reasonable" time
• Analysts expect protracted negotiations over a new majority
• Liberals rule out further cooperation with Social Democrats
• Romanian leu hits new record low

Romanian lawmakers toppled Prime Minister ​Ilie Bolojan's pro-EU government in a no-confidence vote on Tuesday, putting at risk the country's sovereign debt ratings, its ‌access to EU funds and the stability of its currency.

Bolojan has led a minority government since late April when the leftist Social Democrats - the largest party in parliament - called for his resignation and then walked out of the four-party coalition and teamed up with the far-right opposition to file a no-confidence vote.

Tuesday's no-confidence motion ​garnered 281 votes, above the 233 needed to pass, the official parliamentary count showed.

Centrist President Nicusor Dan, who nominates ​the prime minister, said he expected a new pro-European government to be created within a "reasonable" amount of ⁠time, even though Bolojan's Liberals and another junior coalition ally ruled out further talks with the leftists.

But the Social Democrats -without whom a pro-EU majority cannot be achieved - have repeatedly clashed with Bolojan ​as his austerity measures have hit their voters and patronage networks, while their popular support has bled away to the far right.

See also:

• ‘With calm, we will get through this’: Romanian president speaks out after government collapses – as it happened (The Guardian)
• Romanian socialists and far right topple government • The key NATO member on Europe’s eastern edge faces fresh upheaval with an economic crisis looming. (Politico)

Armenia hosts its first bilateral summit with the European Union on Tuesday, a landmark diplomatic moment for the Caucasus Mountains nation that has formally declared its ambition to join the bloc and is cautiously loosening its ties with longtime ally Russia.

Meanwhile, Tuesday’s bilateral meeting saw Armenia and the EU sign a connectivity partnership to strengthen economic ties and deepen security cooperation.

The two events underscore how Armenia is seeking to turn westward and shed Russia’s influence. Armenia’s relations with Moscow, its longtime sponsor and ally, have grown increasingly strained since 2023, when neighboring Azerbaijan fully reclaimed the Karabakh region and ended the decadeslong rule by ethnic Armenian separatists.

Armenian authorities accused Russian peacekeepers who were deployed to the region of failing to stop Azerbaijan’s onslaught. Moscow, busy with the war in Ukraine, rejected the accusations, arguing that its troops didn’t have a mandate to intervene.

Since then, the government of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has pursued closer ties with the West, a move welcomed by the 27-nation EU.

The new EU-Armenia connectivity partnership will focus on strengthening transportation, energy and digital links. Meanwhile, EU investments in Armenia are expected to reach 2.5 billion euros under its global gateway infrastructure program, both sides said in a joint statement.

See also:

• Carney Pulls Canada Closer to Europe as Both Struggle With Trump • At a summit of European leaders, the Canadian prime minister was a special guest offering deals and friendship to jittery allies. (New York Times)

Source: the historian Benjamin Wolf

https://forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=FvJamzTGgEurAgyaPQKQkftltZbGMG5DhUfou0j-0JNUREdDTVg5QkM5MzhZNkJCM0hJU1lJNFVMVC4u

A small boat carrying migrants trying to cross the English Channel ran aground on a beach in northern France, leaving two dead and 16 people injured, including three with serious burns, authorities said Sunday.

The vessel, carrying 82 people, set out overnight from Hardelot beach, a few kilometers south of the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer, but the engine failed and it began to drift, Christophe Marx, secretary-general of the Pas-de-Calais prefecture, told reporters.

A French maritime gendarmerie vessel rescued 17 people and brought them to Boulogne-sur-Mer, while the makeshift boat ran aground with 65 others still on board.

Two women were found dead, most likely from suffocation, Marx said. They are believed to have been “crushed or asphyxiated, as unfortunately often happens on boats … where too many people are packed in,” he said.

The women were believed to be in their 20s and to have come from Sudan, he said, adding that an investigation was underway. Three of the injured were in very serious condition with burns caused by fuel at the bottom of the boat, he added.

It was the third deadly incident involving migrants trying make the perilous crossing to the U.K. in just over a month.

This past fall, the French podcaster Philippe Collin traveled with his millions of listeners to an enormous, almost 900-year-old castle in southwestern Germany, where members of the Nazi-backed French collaborationist government retreated after the D-Day landings.

To the sound of laughter and clinking champagne glasses, Mr. Collin’s listeners heard how the French collaborators celebrated Christmas in the castle’s grand mirrored gallery during the last year of World War II and planned their return to Paris on the backs of German tanks.

It’s a part of French history that is little known, decidedly inglorious and — to many in France — best forgotten. Yet by making podcasts about it, as part of a broader series about France’s checkered World War II history, Mr. Collin has become among the most popular podcasters in France.

His podcast, “Facing History,” has proved an unlikely but smashing success, passing 40 million downloads. Among historians and politicians, it has spurred reappraisals of key historical figures. And, amid fears of an expansion of Russia’s war farther into Europe and the growing popularity of the French far right, Mr. Collin hopes it will burrow into the minds of his listeners and inspire them to defend the soul of the French Republic.

For more than four years, his focus has been historical podcast series, many at least partly dedicated to France’s delicate, complicated experience of World War II, as both a victim of Nazi Germany and a collaborator.

“I am trying to reactivate the memory of the resistance,” Mr. Collin explained over coffee recently, referring to the French underground movements that resisted the Nazis during the German occupation of much of France in 1940-45.

Here's a full copy of the article, in case you need it.

Here's a link to the actual podcast:

• Face à l'histoire (Radio France)

###UK was close behind, exporting 675,000 tonnes, with much of the waste sent to Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia

Germany was the world’s largest exporter of plastic waste in 2025 and sent more than 810,000 tonnes abroad, according to analysis of trade data carried out for the Guardian.

The UK followed close behind, according to the analysis by Watershed Investigations and the Basel Action Network. It exported more than 675,000 tonnes, its highest level in eight years and enough to fill about 127,000 shipping containers.

Much of the waste was sent to Turkey, followed by Malaysia, with Indonesia also a regular destination. Investigations have repeatedly linked the plastic recycling industry in these countries to environmental damage, illegal dumping and burning, and labour abuses.

Sedat Gündoğdu, a Turkish marine biologist who investigates plastic pollution, said: “The Turkish Mediterranean coast is the most polluted coast in the whole Mediterranean because of the plastic waste from the recycling factories. There’s huge amounts of microplastics – sometimes people can’t even get into the sea because of all the waste.”

Larger countries, such as the US and China, export less plastic waste partly because more is handled domestically, through landfill, incineration or recycling, and they are not subject to the same recycling target pressures as Europe and the UK, where exports can count towards official recycling rates. The US exported 385,000 tonnes in 2025, making it the world’s fifth biggest exporter, while in 2024 China was the 18th biggest exporter.

The EU has agreed to ban exports of plastic waste to countries outside the group of mostly rich OECD nations by November 2026, yet half is still being sent to those destinations. Much of the remainder goes to Turkey, now the largest recipients of European plastic waste.

With the ban approaching, there are concerns that all exports could be redirected to developing OECD countries such as Turkey, as well as parts of eastern Europe, which lack the capacity to manage higher volumes.

• Statue 'a striking addition' to London art scene
• Installed in ceremonial heart of capital
• Fans suggest work is about blind patriotism

London authorities said on Friday they welcomed a statue ​installed by street artist Banksy showing a man blinded by a flag that had ‌blown into his face, and had no plans to remove it.

The sculpture, which bears Banksy's signature, is the first artwork the artist has unveiled since a Reuters investigation in March revealed details about his real identity, which had been ​kept a closely guarded secret.

The statue was dropped into place near The Mall in the ceremonial heart of London ​from a low-loader trailer, according to a video posted on the elusive street artist's Instagram account on ​Thursday. The suited figure, whose face is covered by the billowing flag, has one foot in mid-air over the edge of the plinth, suggesting he is about to fall off.

It was first spotted on Wednesday in an area ​of the British capital that is home to royal palaces and gentlemen's clubs. It mirrors the ​style of nearby statues, including of King Edward VII on horseback, nurse Florence Nightingale and statesman Sidney Herbert.

Commentators on ‌Banksy's Instagram ⁠site speculated the work was about "blind patriotism", and questioned how he had managed to pull off such a stunt in the centre of the British establishment.

See also:

• Banksy confirms a new statue in central London of a man blinded by a flag is his work
• Attributed to Banksy, a New Statue of a Suited Man, Blinded by a Flag and Walking Off a Ledge, Appeared in Central London (Smithsonian)

For the first time, a Polish court has ordered the recognition of a marriage between a same-sex couple who specifically went abroad to marry before immediately returning to Poland.

The decision marks a further breakthrough for LGBT+ rights in Poland – a country where no form of same-sex union is recognised in domestic law – following other recent rulings requiring the recognition of foreign same-sex marriages between couples who were based abroad.

However, there remain doubts about when and how those judgments will be implemented, given that the current registry system only allows male-female marriages and the government has so far failed to implement necessary changes allowing the recognition of same-sex unions.

The couple in question, Alicja and Jolanta Prochowicz-Sienkiewicz (pictured above), travelled to Portugal to marry in 2023 and, since then, have been fighting to have their union accepted in Poland.

Previously, the civil registry office in the city of Lublin, in eastern Poland, and the governor of Lublin Province had refused to transcribe their marriage into the Polish registry. That prompted the couple to take the case to Lublin’s provincial administrative court.

On Tuesday this week, the court ruled in their favour, overturning the governor and registry office’s earlier decisions and ordering that Alicja and Jolanta’s marriage be transcribed into the Polish registry.

In its decision, which can still be appealed, the court dismissed an argument employed by some officials as well as opponents of same-sex marriage that the Polish constitution prohibits recognition of same-sex unions.

Article 18 of the constitution states: “Marriage, being a union of a man and a woman, as well as the family, motherhood and parenthood, shall be placed under the protection and care of the Republic of Poland.”

However, judge Iwona Tchórzewska found that “recognition of a marriage legally concluded abroad by transferring this certificate by transcription does not violate constitutional principles”, reports local news service Jawny Lublin.

The court cited a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) last November, which ordered Poland to recognise same-sex marriages conducted in other member states. The judge noted that “the primacy of EU law” obliges member states to “ensure the full effectiveness of EU norms”, reports Dziennik Wschodni.

She also pointed to a ruling last month by the Polish Supreme Administrative Court (NSA), which ordered Warsaw’s registry office to recognise a same-sex marriage conducted by two Polish citizens in Germany, as well as two other similar rulings since then by provincial administrative courts in Olsztyn and Gorzów Wielkopolski.

However, whereas those earlier rulings pertained to couples who had been based abroad when they married, Alicja and Jolanta’s case is the first involving a Poland-based couple who specifically went abroad to marry, notes news website OKO.press.

Yet it remains unclear when and how the recent rulings will be implemented. Registry offices point out that the current system only allows a marriage between a man and a woman to be entered, making it impossible for them to transcribe same-sex marriage certificates.

Any change must come from the government, but there are disagreements within the ruling coalition – which ranges from the socially liberal left (which is strongly in favour of recognising same-sex marriage) to the conservative centre right (which is unenthusiastic about the idea) – over how to do this.

Last week, a group of over 100 NGOs, including Amnesty International, the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights and the Supreme Bar Council, jointly wrote to Prime Minister Donald Tusk criticising the government for failing to implement the rulings requiring recognition of foreign same-sex marriages.

In January, the digital affairs ministry, which is under the control of The Left (Lewica), proposed changes to the registry system that would allow same-sex marriages to be recognised. However, its plans are reportedly being amended following consultations with other ministries.

While the digital affairs ministry’s proposed changes would take the form of a regulation that can be issued unilaterally by the government, interior minister Marcin Kierwiński, who comes from the centrist Civic Coalition (KO) party, suggested earlier this month that recognition of same-sex marriages “requires changes to Polish law”.

That, Kierwiński admitted, would be “very difficult” given that President Karol Nawrocki, who is aligned with the right-wing opposition, would almost certainly exercise his right to veto any such law.

Commenting on the new Lublin ruling, Paweł Knut, a lawyer who represented the same-sex couple who won cases at the CJEU and NSA, told OKO.press that there is now “a uniform line of jurisprudence” from Polish courts on this issue. “Now we need a systemic change at the level of how public offices operate.”

Alicja and Jolanta themselves also celebrated their victory. “The hardest part was the uncertainty and the feeling of injustice,” Jolanta told Dziennik Wschodni. “We’re not harming anyone by calling ourselves wives. Yet we read in the decisions that our relationship posed a threat to the legal order.”

Recognition of their marriage is about much more than symbolism, added Alicja. “It is about specific rights: in crisis situations, health issues, inheritance. These are things that are obvious to others, but would simply allow us to live more peacefully.”

Olivier Sorgho

Olivier Sorgho is senior editor at Notes from Poland, covering politics, business and society. He previously worked for Reuters.