Poland: The Law and Justice Government and relations with the EU, 2015-2023

Summary:

The Law and Justice Party (PiS) and its allies lost office in Poland in December 2023, after losing their majority in parliamentary elections in October. The PiS-led government had been in office for eight years, winning parliamentary elections in 2015 and 2019. Mateusz Morawiecki led the government as Prime Minister from 2017. The PiS candidate, Andrzej Duda, won the presidential election in 2015 and was re-elected in 2020.

PiS was the leading party again at the October 2023 election with 35.4% of the vote. However, three opposition blocs combined won a majority of seats. The largest of these was Civic Coalition, headed by Donald Tusk, with 30.7% of the vote. It signed a coalition agreement with the two smaller opposition blocs, the centrist/centre-right Third Way and the Left, in November 2023.

President Duda appointed a PiS-led government following the parliamentary elections. However, it lost a vote of confidence in the Sejm, the lower chamber of the Polish parliament, on 11 December. Tusk was then elected Prime Minister later on the same day. Tusk was previously Prime Minister from 2007 to 2014, and President of the European Council from 2014 to 2019.

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