Poland

A popular Polish writer is facing a potential sentence of up to three years in prison for calling Polish President Andrzej Duda a "moron" on social media.

Jakub Zulczyk wrote on Facebook on Monday that a district prosecutor in Warsaw had filed an indictment against him based on an article in the penal code that makes it a crime to insult the head of state.

Duda's spokesman, Blazej Spychalski, told the Interia news site Tuesday that neither the president nor his office were parties in the matter and had made no request for the writer to be charged.

Poland is taking the new rule of law clause in the EU budget to the European Court of Justice. This was announced by the government in Warsaw on Thursday. The EU's top judges are to examine whether the new mechanism for cutting EU funds in the event of certain rule of law violations is permissible.

Hungary and Poland oppose the new rule of law mechanism in the EU's multi-annual financial framework for 2021 to 2027. They fear that the mechanism is aimed at cutting EU funds to them because of controversial political projects. Both countries receive billions of euros net from the EU budget. At the same time, both countries are subject to legal proceedings under Article 7 of the EU Treaties for alleged disregard of fundamental EU values.

Members of European Parliament are set to vote on declaring the European Union a LGBTIQ Freedom Zone in support of the community. The move comes two years after the first Polish county officially discriminated against persons based on sexual preference or identity.

Amazon has announced that the "Amazon.pl" website has been launched and customers can now start shopping in Poland.

Alex Ootes, Vice President, European Expansion for Amazon has stated that Amazon is "thrilled to launch Amazon.pl and to be able to offer Polish customers a selection of more than 100 million products, including tens of thousands of products from local Polish businesses".

Riccardo "Reynor" Romiti has won the IEM Katowice in Starcraft 2. The tournament is equivalent to a world championship in the tradition-steeped e-sport. The 18-year-old beat the Korean Joo "Zest" Sung-wook (28) 4:2 in the final.

The German government has declared a Russian diplomat "persona non grata" in response to Moscow's expulsion of EU diplomats last week. Poland and Sweden have made similar announcements.

Russia said the expelled diplomats had participated in a demonstration in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, but Germany disputed this.

"The German diplomat was merely carrying out his task of reporting on developments on the spot in a legal fashion," the Federal Foreign Office of Germany wrote on a statement.

Three diplomats from the EU have been expelled from Russia over their alleged participation in protests in support of Alexei Navalny, the jailed opposition activist who was jailed this week.

The expulsion of the diplomats, from Germany, Sweden and Poland, comes only hours after the EU's foreign affairs chief - Josep Borrell - met his counterpart Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow.

In response to the expulsion, Sweden called it "totally unfounded" and denied their diplomat had participated in any demonstration, and German's foreign ministry said that it was "in no way justified" and would retaliate if Russia did not reconsider the action.

Russia's foreign ministry said that the 3 diplomats allegedly took part in "illegal demonstrations" on 23 January.

Until recently, abortions were allowed in Poland in cases of incest or rape, a threat to the health or life of the mother, and a severe disability of the child. On Wednesday, the country’s top court ruled to tighten the anti-abortion law, banning abortions of fetuses with congenital defects. The decision was followed by anti-government protests outside the court building in Warsaw and in several other Polish cities.

European leaders agreed to increase the bloc's emission-reduction target to 55 percent by 203 following night-long discussions at their two-day summit in Brussels. The coal-reliant countries Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic are finally supporting the goal after member states agreed that the new target should be delivered collectively.

Three days before the decisive meeting of the heads of state and government, the other 25 EU states are now giving Hungary and Poland an ultimatum: either they drop their veto against the next seven-year EU budget, or the other 25 countries will remove the Covid-19 recovery package from the budget and re-issue it among themselves.

Hungary will still reject any attempt to link the rule of law the European Union's budget and its coronavirus recovery fund, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Friday.

The Hungarian and the Polish governments are under EU investigations for undermining the independence of courts, media and non-governmental organisations, so they risk losing tens of billions in funds. Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Paweł Jabłoński told DW that his government will never accept any proposal that "would effectively leave us at the mercy of the European Commission."

Despite both being in the Visegrád Group, Czechia and Slovakia apparently do not share the Polish and Hungarian rejection of the compromise on the EU´s long-term budget and Recovery Plan negotiated by the German Presidency. The foreign ministers of both states have expressed their hopes that neither Hungaria nor Poland will effectively block the implemantation of those EU funds. According to Polish gouvernment sources, a video summit of the Visegrád Group will take place to discuss the disagreements.

Since the Polish court put a near-total-ban on a law that allowed abortion in cases of severe fetal anomalies there has been a noticeable increase in calls to German charities.

One of them being the charity group "Ciocia Basia" located in Berlin who helps and supports Polish women who want to follow through with an abortion in Germany. A volunteer reported that there has been drastic inflation of calls from Polish women who had an abortion planned in Poland but are now not finding a doctor who is willing to treat them. Women who, if the verdict goes through, will be forced to deliver a sick baby and maybe even put their own life at risk.

The European Union faces a crisis after Hungary and Poland vetoed the bloc's historic €1.8tn budget and coronavirus recovery plan over attempts to link funding to respect for democratic norms.

The move unravels months of negotiations over the scale and terms of the EU's spending and sets the stage for a stormy videoconference meeting of the bloc's leaders on Thursday. The 27 EU heads of state and government had signed off on the broad spending package and the inclusion of a link to respect for the rule of law in July, after days of hard debate.

The Polish government has delayed the implementation of the new restricted access to abortion following a court ruling.

The head of the prime minister’s office, Michał Dworczyk, has stated that "there is a discussion going on, and it would be good to take some time for dialogue and for finding a new position in this situation, which is difficult and stirs high emotions" following continued protests.

Poland's Coronavirus cases have tripled in less than a month. The country has exceeded 300,000 cases as of Thursday, with a new highest daily count of 20,156.

14,631 hospital beds are currently occupied by Coronavirus patients and 1203 ventilators are in use.

Poland reported 18,820 new Coronavirus cases. This is the country's highest daily case count. 236 people died in the past 24 hours. 13,931 hospital beds are occupied by Coronavirus patients and 1,150 ventilators are in use.

Following Poland's Constitutional Court decision of banning abortions in cases of fetal defects, protestors and human rights organizations keep gathering in several cities to protest the ruling. Abortion became lawful only when the mother's life is at risk or in cases of rape or incest. Protests have been ongoing since the ruling on October 22.

Gazprom pledges to appeal the case against the Nord Stream 2 project, which is also backed by five Western companies and headed by former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

According to the Polish counterintelligence agency ABW, a German man was arrested last week in Poland. The suspect apparently has a right-wing background and a history of online hate speech. He was charged with possession of weapons and explosives. A further investigation is underway.