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President-Elect Nawrocki Outlined Poland’s Three Priorities In Central And Eastern Europe

By Editor on 28th June 2025 • ( 0 )

President-Elect Nawrocki Outlined Poland’s Three Priorities In Central And Eastern Europe

The common thread tying them together is the “Three Seas Initiative” since they’re all related to it in some way.

Polish President-Elect Karol Nawrocki gave an interview to Hungarian media in early June where he outlined his country’s three priorities in Central & Eastern Europe (CEE). This refers to the formerly communist countries of the Eastern Bloc, with Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine sometimes included in this framework, though Russia importantly never is. As revealed in his interview, Poland’s regional priorities will be the construction of major projects, the Visegrad Group, and rebalancing relations with Ukraine.

With regards to the first, Nawrocki declared that “Poland will become an ambitious country that will shape its future through major projects, such as the new central airport and transport hub.” In connection with that, he’ll likely also prioritize these five other megaprojects that were detailed here in 2021. They’re all linked to the “Three Seas Initiative” (3SI) vision of Polish-led regional integration among the CEE states, which has implications for Russia due to some of their dual military logistics purposes.

As for the second, Poland betrayed its centuries-old Hungarian ally by disparaging Prime Minister Viktor Orban over his pragmatic policy towards the Ukrainian Conflict under both its conservative and liberal governments, thus toxifying their regional cooperation platform that also includes Czechia and Slovakia. Nawrocki envisages reviving the Visegrad Group with a focus on military cooperation and turning it into the core of the Bucharest Nine, which refers to those four, the Baltic States, Romania, and Bulgaria.

And finally, Nawrocki reaffirmed that despite Polish support for Ukraine against Russia (which he condemned as “a post-imperial, neo-communist state”), he remains opposed to its membership in the EU, won’t agree to giving Ukraine any edge over Poland, and expects that it respects Polish interests. This policy pronouncement builds upon liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s recently hardened stance towards Ukraine and presages the possibility of their relations worsening if he rigorously insists on this.

The common thread tying these priorities together is the 3SI since they’re all related to it in some way: connectivity megaprojects are its raison d’etre; the Bucharest Nine and the Visegrad Group within it overlap with most of the 3SI states; and Ukraine is an associate member. Nawrocki’s premier foreign policy focus will therefore likely be on expanding, strengthening, and securitizing the 3Si, the last-mentioned via the dual military logistics projects that’ll optimize NATO’s “military Schengen”.

Just like Putin has prioritized what Russia calls the Greater Eurasian Partnership and Xi has done the same with what China calls the Belt & Road Initiative along with its variations like the Global Civilization, Development, and Security Initiatives, so too is Nawrocki expected to do the same with the 3SI. Unlike those two, which aren’t aimed against any third parties, the 3SI has very distinct anti-Russian contours as was earlier touched upon, hence why it enjoys the US’ support and Trump attended its summit in 2017.

Not only does US backing aim to turn the 3SI into a regional bulwark against Russia, but it also wants to assemble a collection of conservative-nationalist CEE states to serve as a counterweight to Western Europe’s liberal-globalists within the EU and to have these countries divide Western Europe and Russia. Seeing as how “Poland Is Once Again Poised To Become The US’ Top Partner In Europe” under Nawrocki, it’s therefore also expected that Trump 2.0 will enthusiastically support his 3SI-centric regional vision.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.