Poland’s six-month presidency of the EU Council ends Sunday, with Prime Minister Donald Tusk highlighting defence spending and migration policies as key outcomes.
Poland will formally conclude its presidency of the European Union Council on June 30, after leading EU discussions since January 1, 2025.
At a press conference in Brussels on Thursday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen acknowledged the challenges of the term, telling Prime Minister Donald Tusk, "Your presidency has been difficult, but you have made it."
Tusk focused his closing remarks on defence, saying Poland helped shift the EU’s mindset on security amid the current geopolitical climate.
"The EU was built on the belief that war would never return to Europe," Tusk said. "Breaking this naïve faith was not easy."
Tusk cited key achievements including securing 150 billion euros under the SAFE programme to boost Europe’s arms industry, and financial support for the 'Shield East' initiative along the EU’s eastern borders.
However, the presidency was not without controversy. Tusk’s government passed a law allowing temporary suspension of asylum applications, a move criticized by human rights groups as risking abuse and worsening conditions at the Polish-Belarusian border.
Tusk defended the law as an "unprecedented solution" to help Europe manage illegal migration.
European and Polish politicians reflected on the presidency’s difficult balance between security priorities and humanitarian concerns.
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A drone incident at a military base in Przasnysz has triggered a police inquiry in Poland as security agencies across Europe confront a growing number of unauthorised devices entering restricted airspace.
Poland will begin phasing out the special residence and welfare rules granted to Ukrainians who fled the war with Russia, shifting them onto the country’s standard legal framework for foreign nationals from March, the government said on Tuesday.
Poland plans to expand its armed forces to 500,000 by 2039, including 300,000 active-duty troops and 200,000 reservists, officials said Friday. The enlarged force would feature a new high-readiness reserve unit.
Poland will not send troops to Greenland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday, warning that any military action by one NATO member against the territory of another would fundamentally undermine the alliance and global security.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has deployed one of its largest ballistic missiles at a newly unveiled underground base on Wednesday (3 February), just two days ahead of mediated nuclear talks with the United States in Muscat, Oman.
Rivers and reservoirs across Spain and Portugal were on the verge of overflowing on Wednesday as a new weather front pounded the Iberian peninsula, compounding damage from last week's Storm Kristin.
Morocco has evacuated more than 100,000 people from four provinces after heavy rainfall triggered flash floods across several northern regions, the Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.
Winter weather has brought air travel in the German capital to a complete halt, stranding thousands of passengers as severe icing conditions make runways and aircraft unsafe for operation and force authorities to shut down one of Europe’s key transport hubs.
Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes killed 24 Palestinians including seven children in Gaza on Wednesday (4 February), health officials said, the latest violence to undermine the nearly four-month-old ceasefire.
After months of heightened tension following their war in June 2025 and weeks of escalating mutual threats, Iran and the United States resumed fragile nuclear diplomacy on Friday, as negotiators from both sides held critical mediated talks in Muscat, Oman.
The United States has accused Beijing of conducting a covert nuclear test in 2020, adding fresh strain to already fraught relations as Washington presses for a broader arms control treaty to include China as well as Russia.
A senior Russian military intelligence officer has been rushed to hospital after being shot several times in Moscow, in the latest apparent assassination attempt targeting the country’s top brass since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Iran and the United States opened nuclear talks in Oman on Friday, with Tehran calling the meeting a good start and both sides agreeing to continue discussions after returning to their capitals for consultations.
An attacker opened fire at the gates of a Shi'ite Muslim mosque in Islamabad on Friday before detonating a suicide bomb that killed at least 31 people in the deadliest assault of its kind in the capital in more than ten years.
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