Poland in Europe and the world

From the Alliance's laggard to first place in three years. Until 2022 Poland hovered around the 2% threshold; after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine spending more than doubled. Over half the budget goes on equipment — a sign of real modernisation, not mere upkeep.

A methodological note: NATO reports 4.48% for 2025, the Polish government 4.7% — both are true, differing in scope (the Armed Forces Support Fund and the timing of booking). In the peace ranking (chapter 12) this militarisation is the one component that costs Poland points.

Poland's army more than doubled its personnel in a decade — a change of scale, not a correction. Headcount and capital intensity are growing together: spending per inhabitant rose almost fourfold. Poland is today the second EU country after Germany in hosting refugees from Ukraine and the key logistics hub for aid to Kyiv.

Two-thirds of the transfers went into cohesion policy — hence the visible effect on roads, rail, sewage plants and municipal infrastructure. For two decades Poland was the EU budget's largest net beneficiary in absolute terms; from 2027, as income passes 90% of the average in successive regions, the stream will start to shrink.

The balance is only part of the account: access to the single market explains most of the sixfold rise in exports (chapter 5) — a benefit absent from this table.

The energy transition has accelerated, but it started from the heaviest coal dependence in the Union. In 2025 coal's share fell to 52% — 27 points below a decade earlier — and renewables delivered a record 31% of power. Poland and Germany together still account for over 70% of all coal-fired electricity in the EU.

The grid is not keeping up with the sources: in 2025 1.4 TWh of renewable energy was curtailed because of transmission constraints — twice as much as a year earlier. The nuclear plant is to deliver its first power in 2036; the schedule has already slipped several times, so it is a plan, not a fact.

One graphic shows success and braking at once: more than 1.6 million households and firms produce their own power — one of the fastest prosumer booms in Europe — but after the billing system changed, growth fell from the teens to six per cent a year. For the first time in six years the main engine of solar growth is large farms, not rooftops — the market is maturing.

Between 1970 and 2000 Poland built 434 km of motorways and expressways; in the decade 2011–2020 alone — 2,773 km. Today the network runs to 5,600 km, about two-thirds of the planned target shape, with another 1,200 km under construction. This is the money from the previous chart turned into concrete.

Rail is catching up: PKP Intercity carried a record 89 million passengers in 2025, a third more than two years earlier, and ordered Poland's first high-speed trains. Gdańsk's Baltic Hub — the only deep-water terminal on the Baltic — handled a record 2.77 million containers after its T3 terminal opened.

Four years after the war began, Poland still hosts almost a million people under temporary protection — one in five Ukrainian refugees in the Union — and is second after Germany in absolute numbers and first relative to population among the large states. This is the same group towards which Poles' attitudes have clearly cooled (chapter 13): the numbers on hospitality and the numbers on antipathy have to be read together.

One ranking strip shows the country's whole profile: in safety, happiness, passport strength and human development Poland is in the world's top tier (places 6–35 of 140–200 countries); in innovation, quality of democracy and perceived corruption — in the second or third ten. Its economic position (21st) is higher than its brand position (31st) — the gap this document tries to close.