Please note

In our latest eupinions publication “Old Habits Die Hard”, we examine how Europeans perceive the future of the transatlantic partnership, how they assess their role in the world, the threats they perceive and the allies they value. It consists of two parts: 

Part I, Old Habits Die Hard - Remaking the Transatlantic Partnership: EU and US Public Opinion, compares public opinion in the EU and the US and breaks down the survey results by urban/rural location, age, education level, and political leaning. 

It is supplemented by Part II, Old Habits Die Hard - Remaking the Transatlantic Partnership: Public Opinion in the EU and seven Member States, which in turn compares all EU data with the survey results in seven Member States: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain. 

In the following, our Polish experts Jacek Kucharczyk and Małgorzata Kopka-Piątek look at the results from a Polish perspective.

Poland is the only country in the survey that borders both Ukraine and Russia. This geographical position – as well as a long history of foreign invasions and occupations by Poland’s neighbors – clearly influences the survey’s results compared with responses from other EU countries.

Successive generations of Poles have perceived the United States as an important friend and ally. The history of both countries is linked by the figures such as Tadeusz Kościuszko and Kazimierz Pułaski – 18th century fighters for the freedom and independence of both Poland and America (hence, among others, the Kosciuszko Bridge that connects two New York boroughs). Many Poles found a new home on the new continent and maintained close contact with their families in Poland, contributing to the image of the United States as their “promised land” in the 19th and 20th centuries. At the time of the greatest tragedy in Poland's modern history - the Second World War – Poles looked to the  United States as a future liberator while dreading the “liberation” by Stalin’s Soviet Union. During the communist era, the U.S. administration and society supported the Polish democratic opposition and the Solidarity trade union. Most Poles saw U.S. policy toward the Soviet bloc as the main factor in the fall of communism in 1989. For these reasons, independent and democratic Poland has considered the United States its most valuable ally. In the early 1990s, NATO membership was perceived as a way of – first and foremost – cementing the military ties with NATO’s mightiest member, the United States. Despite already strong domestic polarization, governments and politicians on the left and right energetically pursued the goal of joining NATO, which was achieved in 1999. Poland participated in U.S.  military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, despite strong criticism from key European allies, Germany and France. For Poland, involvement in these two wars was a sort of insurance policy against Russia, which even then was considered a greater threat to Poland than Islamist terrorism – the justification for these two increasingly unpopular U.S.- led interventions.

Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine in 2022 and the leading role of the United States in providing military assistance to Kyiv solidified the perception that, in military terms, the United States is Poland’s most reliable partner if it ever needs to fend off Russian aggression. In 2022, more than 80% of Poles perceived the United States as Poland’s key international partner.

As the September 2024 eupinions survey indicates, 65% of Poles currently see the United States as their country’s most valuable ally, more than in any of the countries included in this study. At the same time, it should be noted that younger Poles and respondents with left-leaning views are by far less convinced as regards the value of an alliance with the United States. This might be attributed to Trump’s presidency and his ambiguous stance toward Russia, which rings alarm bells in Poland and across Europe. These respondents are also the first generation to have been born and raised in Poland as a NATO and EU member, leading them to perceive the role of individual partners like the United States differently.

29% of Poles see an attack by a foreign aggressor as the top threat to peace in the EU, notably more than the EU wide average of 18%. Although border security comes in as a close second (28%), it should be noted that, in public perception, the two issues are closely connected, as most Poles consider the situation on Poland’s border with Belarus a case of Russian hybrid warfare.

This would explain why as many as 80% of Poles believe that NATO protects against their primary threat, once again more than the EU average or any of the countries included here. The importance of NATO remains high regardless of political or socioeconomic divisions, even among younger respondents. High trust in NATO’s protection stands in sharp contrast to other EU countries, where it tends to be much lower, sometimes by as much as 20 percentage points or more. Poland’s position on the EU’s eastern flank, as well as its long-standing and well-justified mistrust of Russia, largely explains why Polish public opinion differs so much from views across the EU, even at a time when it should be clear to all Europeans that Russia remains an aggressive imperialistic power bent on spreading instability across the continent. These differences in assessing the level of threat from Putin's Russia could become problematic in the long term for maintaining unity in developing a common EU stance toward Russia.

High trust in NATO’s protection goes hand by hand with prevailing trust in international cooperation. As many as 84% of Poles believe that international relations thrive on cooperation. Once again, Poland’s not-so-distant memories of being dominated by Russian imperialism and Poland’s (partly aspirational) status as a middle-sized power result in this high level of support for international cooperation. In this sense, Poland is much closer to its EU partners than to the United States.

Nearly a third of Poles (29%) think that securing peace should top the EU agenda, which aligns with the sense that Poland remains under the threat of military aggression and the belief in international cooperation. In a similar vein, 73% of Poles wish for the EU to play a more active role in world affairs. Notably, this view is less common among Poles who identify themselves with the political right. It is shared by just 43% of those on the right, in contrast to 86% on the left. This split stems from the more than eight years of rule by Poland’s eurosceptic and populist Law and Justice party, whose political narrative was built on mistrust in the EU.

Finally, unlike other Europeans, a clear majority (60%) of Poles do not believe it is time for Europe to go its own way. While many Poles might be wary of the incoming Trump presidency, they tend to believe that Europe cannot fend for itself in today’s chaotic and dangerous world and that transatlantic cooperation needs to be maintained despite the recent political turn in the United States. There is a prevailing conviction among Polish politicians and experts that, with Donald Trump's transactional approach to international politics, the EU should present the United States with a “good deal” that keeps European security a priority for the U.S. administration, thus buying the time needed to increase Europe's defense. After all, it is also clear to the Polish elite that Europe must invest even more heavily in rearmament, defense policy coordination and, in the long run, the ability to ensure security on the continent more independently.