Opposition to Ukraine’s EU and NATO membership now outweighs support in Poland

Only 35% of Poles believe their country should support Ukraine’s ambitions to join the European Union – and 37% when it comes to NATO accession – a new study has found. A larger proportion, 42% in both cases, were opposed to Poland supporting Kyiv’s path to membership.

Those figures mark a significant change compared to a similar poll conducted by the same agency, IBRiS, soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when 85% and 75% of respondents in Poland were in favour of Ukraine joining the EU and NATO respectively.

The new polling was conducted by IBRiS on behalf of Defence24, a Polish news website, and the Stand With Ukraine foundation, an NGO. It asked questions about the ongoing war in Ukraine, Poland’s support for Kyiv, as well as Poland’s own security.

A narrow majority of respondents, 52%, agreed that “Poland should support Ukraine in international forums”, while 29% said it should not. However, only 35% said that Poland should “continue economic support for Ukraine” while 44% were opposed.

Meanwhile, 37% said “Poland should support Ukraine’s accession to NATO” and 35% said the same for EU membership. In both cases, 42% of respondents were opposed.

By contrast, when IBRiS asked, shortly after Russia’s invasion in 2022, “should Ukraine be accepted to the EU/NATO”, 85% said yes for the EU and 75% for NATO, with 8% and 14% opposed respectively.

In that same year, President Andrzej Duda called for Ukraine to be given an “express path” to EU membership while the then prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, declared that “we want to support Ukraine in its efforts to join”.

Last year, Poland’s current government, led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, called on the EU to urgently start membership talks with Ukraine. In May this year, Poland signed an agreement with Ukraine that included a commitment to support Kyiv in its negotiations to join the EU.

However, during this year’s presidential election campaign, three right-wing opposition candidates, Karol Nawrocki, Sławomir Mentzen and Grzegorz Braun – who finished second, third and fourth in the first round with a combined 51% – all opposed Ukrainian membership. Nawrocki then won the second-round run-off.

Since Russia’s invasion, Poland has been one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters, providing large amounts of military, humanitarian and economic support. It was also the primary destination for the millions of refugees fleeing the war.

A July 2022 study found that 77% of Poles had been personally involved in helping Ukrainian refugees, spending around €2 billion from their own pockets. Meanwhile, around two thirds of Poles that year expressed approval of the government’s strong support for Ukraine.

However, in the new IBRiS study, 46% of respondents said that Poland should either reduce (26%) or halt completely (20%) its military aid to Ukraine. Only 5% want it increased while 35% say it should continue at the same level.

Almost 45% of respondents think that Warsaw’s support for Ukraine improves Poland’s own security, while 37% do not. Only 15% favour sending Polish troops to Ukraine on a peace mission after the war, with 64% against such a solution.

Poland’s government recently rejected a suggestion by Donald Trump’s envoy for Ukraine that it could be part of a force deployed to Ukraine under a peace deal to end the war.

Asked by IBRiS about ending the war, 62% responded that Ukraine should hold peace talks with Russia even without a ceasefire, with 15% against. Meanwhile, 35% believe Kyiv should accept the loss of some territory to end the war while 34% disagree.

That echoes the findings of regular polling by Polish state research agency CBOS, which last December found for the first time that a majority of Poles believe the war in Ukraine should end even if it requires Kyiv to cede part of its territory or independence.

In its new study, IBRiS also asked respondents to rate on a scale of one to seven how likely they think it is that Russia would attack Poland. A quarter (24%) chose the least likely options of one or two while only 12% chose the most likely ones of six or seven, with the remainder in between.

If Poland were attacked by Russia, 57% of Poles think that the United States would offer Poland military support, as it is obliged to do under the NATO treaty. Almost one in five (18%) think Washington would not help.

An international survey by Pew Research Center published earlier this month found that confidence among Poles in the US president to do the right thing in international affairs has collapsed from 75% a year ago under Joe Biden to 35% now under Donald Trump.

IBRiS found that 50% of Poles support increased defence spending, which at 4.7% of GDP is already at the highest relative level in NATO. Almost a third (30%) favour maintaining the current level while just 5% want to lower defence spending.

Main image credit: Piotr Skornicki / Agencja Wyborcza.pl