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| Position | Person | Party |
|---|---|---|
| President | Andrzej Duda | Independent (Supported by Law and Justice) |
| Prime Minister | Donald Tusk | Civic Platform |
| Marshal of the Sejm | Szymon Hołownia | Poland 2050 |
| Marshal of the Senate | Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska | Civic Platform |
Bold indicates government parties.
| Party | Leader | European Party | Seats | Popular vote | Percentage | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| English | Polish | |||||
| Civic Coalition | Koalicja Obywatelska | Marcin Kierwiński | European People's Party | 21 / 53 | 4,359,443 | 37.06% |
| Law and Justice | Prawo i Sprawiedliwość | Małgorzata Gosiewska | European Conservatives and Reformists | 20 / 53 | 4,253,169 | 36.16% |
| Confederation | Konfederacja Wolność i Niepodległość | Ewa Zajączkowska-Hernik | Europe of Sovereign Nations Non-inscrits | 6 / 53 | 1,420,287 | 12.08% |
| Third Way | Trzecia Droga | Michał Kobosko | European People's Party Renew Europe | 3 / 53 | 813,238 | 6.91% |
| The Left | Lewica | Robert Biedroń | Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats | 3 / 53 | 741,071 | 6.3% |
| Other | 0 / 53 | 65.860 (Total) | 1.49% (Total) | |||
| Total and turnout | 53 | 11,761,994 | 40.65% | |||
Source: [48]
Belarusians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Belarus. They natively speak Belarusian, an East Slavic language. More than 9 million people proclaim Belarusian ethnicity worldwide. Nearly 7.99 million Belarusians reside in Belarus, with the United States and Russia being home to more than 500,000 Belarusians each. The majority of Belarusians adhere to Eastern Orthodoxy.
Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area.
Donald Franciszek Tusk is a Polish politician and historian who has served as the prime minister of Poland since 2023, previously holding the office from 2007 to 2014. From 2014 to 2019 Tusk was President of the European Council, and from 2019 to 2022 he was the president of the European People's Party (EPP). He co-founded the Civic Platform (PO) party in 2001 and has been its longtime leader, first from 2003 to 2014 and again since 2021.
Telewizja Polska S.A., also known in English as Polish Television, is a public service broadcaster in Poland, founded in 1952. It is the oldest and largest Polish television network. After 2015, when the right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS) party won the Polish parliamentary election, TVP progressively aligned with the speaking points of the PiS government. In the run-up to the 2023 Polish parliamentary election, TVP was designated as a "propaganda arm" of PiS by European media and as "a factory of hate" by the Polish opposition. However, after the electoral victory of the opposition party the Civic Platform in 2023, a newly-appointed Minister of Culture began a restructuring of the broadcaster and its news segment. On December 27, 2023, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, due to the President's veto on the financing of the company, placed it in liquidation.
The Odesa–Brody pipeline is a crude oil pipeline between the Ukrainian cities Odesa at the Black Sea, and Brody near the Ukrainian-Polish border. There are plans to expand the pipeline to Płock, and furthermore to Gdańsk in Poland. The pipeline is operated by UkrTransNafta, Ukraine's state-owned oil pipeline company.
The Druzhba pipeline, also referred to as the Friendship Pipeline and the Comecon Pipeline, is one of the world's longest oil pipelines and one of the largest oil pipeline networks in the world. It began operation in 1964 and remains in operation today. It carries oil some 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi) from the eastern part of European Russia to points in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Germany. The network also branches out into numerous smaller pipelines to deliver its product throughout Eastern Europe and beyond.
Western Ukraine or West Ukraine refers to the western territories of Ukraine. There is no universally accepted definition of the territory's boundaries, but the contemporary Ukrainian administrative regions (oblasts) of Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Ternopil and Zakarpattia are typically included. In addition, Volyn and Rivne oblasts are also usually included. In modern sources, Khmelnytskyi Oblast is often included because of its geographical, linguistic and cultural association with Western Ukraine, although this can not be confirmed from a historical and political point of view. It includes several historical regions such as Carpathian Ruthenia, Halychyna including Pokuttia, most of Volhynia, northern Bukovina and the Hertsa region, and Podolia. Western Ukraine is sometimes considered to include areas of eastern Volhynia, Podolia, and the small northern portion of Bessarabia.
Mutual relations between the Republic of Belarus and the European Union (EU) were initially established after the European Economic Community recognised Belarusian independence in 1991.
The Polish population transfers in 1944–1946 from the eastern half of prewar Poland, were the forced migrations of Poles toward the end and in the aftermath of World War II. These were the result of a Soviet Union policy that had been ratified by the main Allies of World War II. Similarly, the Soviet Union had enforced policies between 1939 and 1941 which targeted and expelled ethnic Poles residing in the Soviet zone of occupation following the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland. The second wave of expulsions resulted from the retaking of Poland from the Wehrmacht by the Red Army. The USSR took over territory for its western republics.
Belsat is a Polish free-to-air terrestrial and satellite television channel aimed at Belarus. The channel is a subsidiary of TVP S.A. From the outset, it has been co-funded by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and international donors.
Usnarz Górny is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Szudziałowo, within Sokółka County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland. It is situated close to the border with Belarus. It lies approximately 8 kilometres (5 mi) north-east of Szudziałowo, 20 km (12 mi) south-east of Sokółka and 47 km (29 mi) north-east of the regional capital Białystok.
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Historically, Białystok has been a destination for internal and foreign immigration, especially from Central and Eastern Europe. In addition to the Polish minority in 19th century, there was a significant Jewish majority in Białystok. According to Russian census of 1897, out of the total population of 66,000, Jews constituted 41,900. In 1936, Białystok had a population of 99,722, of whom: 50.9% (50,758) were Poles, 42.6% (42,482) Jews, 2.1% (2,094) Germans and 0.4% (359) Russians. World War II changed all of this, in 1939, ca. 107,000 persons lived in Białystok, but in 1946 – only 56,759, and to this day there is much less ethnic diversity than in the previous 300 years of the city's history. Currently the city's population is 97% Polish, 2.5% Belarusian and 0.5% of a number of minorities including Russians, Lipka Tartars, Ukrainians and Romani. Most of the modern day population growth is based on internal migration and urbanization.
The Belarusian–Polish border is the state border between the Republic of Poland and the Republic of Belarus. It has a total length of 398.6 km (247.7 mi), 418 km (260 mi) or 416 km (258 mi). It starts from the triple junction of the borders with Lithuania in the north and stretches to the triple junction borders with Ukraine to the south. It is also part of the EU border with Belarus. The border runs along the administrative borders of two Voivodships Podlaskie and Lubelskie in the Polish side and Grodno and Brest Vobłasć in the Belarusian side. In the Polish side, the 246.93 km (153.44 mi) section is under the protection of the Podlaski Border Guard Regional Unit, while the 171.31 km (106.45 mi) section is in the operation area of the Bug Border Guard Regional Unit. Border rivers are Czarna Hańcza, Wołkuszanka, Świsłocz, Narew, and Bug.
Refugees in Poland were, until 2022, a relatively small group. Since 1989, the number of people applying for refugee status in Poland has risen from about 1,000 to 10,000 each year; about 1–2% of the applications were approved. The majority of applications were citizens of the former Soviet Union.
The migration and asylum policy of the European Union is within the area of freedom, security and justice, established to develop and harmonise principles and measures used by member countries of the European Union to regulate migration processes and to manage issues concerning asylum and refugee status in the European Union.
In August 2021, the government of Belarus began coordinating an influx of migrants, mostly from the Middle East and North Africa, to the borders of Lithuania, Poland and Latvia. Although Belarus denied involvement, both the European Union and independent observers viewed it as hybrid warfare undertaken in response to the deterioration in Belarus–European Union relations following the 2020 Belarusian presidential election and the 2020–2021 Belarusian protests. Between August and December 2021, tens of thousands of unauthorized border crossing attempts were recorded, peaking in October. At least 20 migrants died in the following winter due to the actions of Poland. Attempted border crossings fell sharply the following year, but never returned to their pre-crisis levels. In the spring of 2024, numbers began rising again, although they remain well below those seen in the peak of the crisis in 2021.
The history of Europe during the 2020s covers political events on the continent, other than elections, from 2020 to the present, culminating when the year 2029 ends.
Events in the year 2023 in Poland.
Events of the year 2023 in Belarus.
