US special envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow for talks with Vladimir Putin – Europe live
Over in Poland, the inauguration ceremony of the country’s new president, Karol Nawrocki, will start in just under an hour at 10am local time (9am London).
42-year-old Nawrocki narrowly won the presidential election in June, defying the polls and beating the Oxford-educated liberal Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski who was widely regarded as the clear favourite to replace the conservative incumbent Andrzej Duda stepping down after two terms.
A historian with a controversial past, he has little experience in frontline politics after serving as the head of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, a state research institute with public prosecution powers investigating historical crimes against Poland.
Backed by the populist-right opposition Law and Justice party which ruled Poland between 2015 and 2023, Nawrocki ran a campaign under Trumpesque slogan “Poland first, Poles first.” He also secured Donald Trump’s endorsement after an unexpected White House visit just weeks before the decisive vote.
Marek Magierowski, former aide to the outgoing president Duda and Poland’s former US ambassador, said in a blog post that Nawrocki’s links with the US could “help keep both countries aligned in the contest against Russia”.
Domestically, however, Nawrocki’s presidency is likely to pose a major challenge for Poland’s pro-European coalition government run by former European Council president Donald Tusk.
While the role of the Polish president is largely ceremonial, it carries some influence over foreign and defence policy and a critical power to veto new legislation. This can only be overturned with a majority of three-fifths in parliament, which the current government does not have.
Nawrocki is expected to play an active role in domestic politics to directly challenge growingly unpopular Tusk, with the incoming president’s aides saying he will put forward his first legislative proposals already later this week.
Aleks Szczerbiak, an expert on east and central European politics at the University of Sussex, said in his blog that Nawrocki’s win “represents a huge blow to the Tusk government’s plans to re-set its reform agenda.”
“The government can now expect continued resistance from a hostile President for the remainder of its term until the next parliamentary election, scheduled for autumn 2027, making it very hard for it to push forward with its policy agenda,” he wrote in a recent analysis.
Nawrocki’s presidency could also mark a shift in Poland’s position on Ukraine, as he previously repeatedly spoke about the difficult history between the two nations and declared his opposition to Ukrainian membership in Nato.
He will deliver his inaugural address as part of the swearing in ceremony, and I will bring you all the key lines.