Down Syndrome Poles take their struggles to the stage

Poland has long been the poster boy among EU economies, but behind its remarkable growth story is a widening inequality gap. This may help explain why Poles vote for parties that promise redistribution.

Poland's spending plans for billions of euros in pandemic recovery funding has been cleared by the EU's executive. But Warsaw must still make changes to ensure judicial independence before any payments can be made.

As war continues to rage in Ukraine, neighbouring countries worry that they might see the conflict spill over into their territory. In Poland, fears are centered around the Suwalki gap, a strip of Polish land that lies between the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and Belarus. NATO troops are currently training nearby, in anticipation of every possible scenario. Our team reports.

The European Parliament has approved a bill prohibiting the sale of new CO2-emitting cars by 2035, part of plans to cut net emissions by 55% by 2030. The move highlights Poland's lack of electric charging facilities.

For the latest edition of Europe Now, we head to Poland and Hungary. These two EU members both border Ukraine and have both taken in large numbers of Ukrainian refugees. But on more political issues, their governments' responses to the war have been drastically different. Our team meets lawmakers from across the political spectrum of both countries to discover why the Polish and Hungarian governments have taken such different stances. We also explore other key issues, such as the ever-expanding EU files on degradations of rule of law.

The presidents of both countries announced the shift as they attempt to restore diplomatic ties that frayed after the passage of a Polish law blocking restitution.

Twelve people have been killed with 31 injured — 18 of them seriously — after a Polish bus filled with religious pilgrims slipped off a road and crashed near Varazdin in northwestern Croatia, authorities said.

After banning imports of Russian coal in April, Europe's largest coal producer, Poland, is now suffering a shortage. As prices soar, Warsaw is scrambling to find emergency solutions that could speed up its coal phaseout.

The Polish government says experts have found toxic algae in water samples from a river on the Polish-German border. Thousands of dead fish have appeared along the Oder River after mass die-offs in recent weeks.

Slovakia will have Polish and Czech fighter jets protect its airspace as it gives up its old Soviet-made MiGs. The NATO allies are chiming in to uphold the eastern flank until Slovakia receives new jets in 2024.

Last winter, migrants were trapped in a military exclusion zone at the border between Poland and Belarus. That zone has now been replaced by a huge fence. But even for Polish citizens, things are nowhere near back to normal.

As European leaders were warning of sabotage to the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, Poland and Norway inaugurated a new conduit that will reduce dependence on Russian gas. The move underscores the urgency of EU economies' search for new energy sources.