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Speaker 1: The EU has its eyes on Warsaw, the upcoming election

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Speaker 1: and the future of the Polish Meetia I head.

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Speaker 2: Of Foreign Elections, which will decide its future in the

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Speaker 2: European Union. Thousands gathered in Warsaw in support of a

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Speaker 2: march led by former European Council President Donald Tusk.

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Speaker 3: Poland holds parliamentary elections on Sunday, and there's a lot

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Speaker 3: at stake for the nation and its people, of course,

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Speaker 3: but Bloomberg's Andrea Dudik and Pyotskolemowsky report the vote also

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Speaker 3: promises to decide whether Poland's nationalist government will continue to

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Speaker 3: diverge further from Western Europe socially and politically. Also top

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Speaker 3: of mind the EU's response to the horrific Hamas attack

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Speaker 3: on Israeli civilians and whether the continent can stand together

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Speaker 3: in support of Ukraine amid growing signs of war fatigue.

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Speaker 3: I'm wes Kisova today on the big take. Why Europe

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Speaker 3: is watching what happens in Poland? I asked Andrea, and

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Speaker 3: why is not just people in Poland who should be

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Speaker 3: paying attention to Sunday's election.

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Speaker 4: Poland is the largest country in the EUS East and

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Speaker 4: it has played a key role in supporting Ukraine and

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Speaker 4: it's fight against Russia.

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Speaker 5: Poland was the main destination for a lot of migrants

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Speaker 5: from Ukraine. Just after the war started. More than a

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Speaker 5: million people arrived into the country, and Poles opened their

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Speaker 5: hearts and opened their houses for them. That's something that

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Speaker 5: made Poland stand out right from the beginning of the conflict. Also,

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Speaker 5: Poland became a destination or the main hub for all

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Speaker 5: the aid that was coming from the West towards Ukraine.

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Speaker 5: Between eighty and ninety percent of all the aid coming

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Speaker 5: from the West to Ukraine passes through Poland.

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Speaker 4: This government, despite its difficulties with the EU, has been

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Speaker 4: very pro us Polish officials. I visited the White House.

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Speaker 4: It has been a huge ally to the US, gluing

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Speaker 4: both sides of the Atlantic and its response against the

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Speaker 4: Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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Speaker 3: As you pointed out, there's some high tension between Poland

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Speaker 3: and other members of the EU, and that too is

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Speaker 3: really a big part of the story, beyond its relationship

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Speaker 3: with Ukraine. Exactly what is the source of that tension.

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Speaker 5: The current government has been fighting on the various fronts

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Speaker 5: with the EU. The main fight is over the rule

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Speaker 5: of law. The current government has tried to erode checks

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Speaker 5: and balances that are in the system by changing the

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Speaker 5: court and stacking the top court with their own appointees.

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Speaker 5: Dead did not go down well with the EU, which

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Speaker 5: said this is basically a way to have an influence

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Speaker 5: over the courts, over the justice system by the executive.

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Speaker 6: As well, the European Union's highest court has ruled that

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Speaker 6: Poland's controversial justice reform violates EU law.

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Speaker 5: That led to the situation where Poland has been withheld

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Speaker 5: money from the so called Recovery and Resilience Fund. The

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Speaker 5: fight over judiciary also extend into other areas. The local

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Speaker 5: governments that were run by the current coalition have set

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Speaker 5: up so called LGDBQ free zones, the parts of the

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Speaker 5: country where LGBTQ people are not welcome. Again, the EU reacted,

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Speaker 5: They pushed back and said those areas, those regions of

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Speaker 5: the country will not receive aid. Just to give you

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Speaker 5: a bit of a context of how the political system

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Speaker 5: in Poland is structured. The Prime Minister is the head

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Speaker 5: of the government. His name is Matosh Moravitsky, although actually

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Speaker 5: the leader of the main party, the Law and Justice,

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Speaker 5: which has been in power for eight years. Right now,

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Speaker 5: unofficially he's just a deputy prime minister, but as a

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Speaker 5: matter of fact, he is the most powerful person in Poland.

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Speaker 3: And that's yooswav Kachinsky in his party, the ruling Law

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Speaker 3: and Justice Party is also the party of the Prime Minister.

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Speaker 5: We also have the President, whose role is mostly ceremonial,

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Speaker 5: although as the head of the armed forces Andre Duda,

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Speaker 5: his role has grown over the last year, especially since

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Speaker 5: the war in Ukraine has begun. The president is also

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Speaker 5: the person who decides who gets the first chance to

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Speaker 5: form the government after the election. The Law and Justice

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Speaker 5: Party dave pulled the country into this populist group of

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Speaker 5: countries that are now emerging in Europe. A couple of

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Speaker 5: things characteristic of how they've done it is obviously they've

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Speaker 5: put up a fight with the EU. They've been less

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Speaker 5: tolerant for LGBTQ people, the abortion lots have been tightened.

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Speaker 5: Their entire rhetoric during this election has been very much

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Speaker 5: focused on us against them, you know what's important for

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Speaker 5: our country, against the EU as representing the forces from

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Speaker 5: coming from the outset and trying to impose their rules

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Speaker 5: on Poland.

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Speaker 4: Poland now is the most divided it has been since

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Speaker 4: post communist days. On the one hand, we see society

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Speaker 4: voters of the Law and Justice Party who have benefited

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Speaker 4: from the social benefits that the government has handed out

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Speaker 4: and they're happy and they just wanted to stay that way.

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Speaker 4: And on the other hand, we have the opposition of

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Speaker 4: mostly young people or just followers, are trying to decide

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Speaker 4: whether their rights are going to be further taken away

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Speaker 4: from them. And this is where Poland stands right now.

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Speaker 4: That the sort of turning point of are we going

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Speaker 4: to go further in this division or is there a

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Speaker 4: chance for the opposition to win and bring Poland back

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Speaker 4: to the European mainstream.

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Speaker 3: Andre are these policies popular with most people in Poland?

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Speaker 4: What the Lawn Justice did when it first took power

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Speaker 4: eight years ago, it really focused on voters it felt

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Speaker 4: that were left behind from this post communist transformation and

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Speaker 4: that people who didn't benefit from suddenly being part of

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Speaker 4: the richer block and that has really worked for them.

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Speaker 4: And that is something that people that we've talked to

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Speaker 4: keep saying, they're better off than they were eight years ago.

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Speaker 4: And even though they may not like all of the

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Speaker 4: government's policies, or they don't agree with them, or even

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Speaker 4: if they agree with them, their focus or their appreciation

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Speaker 4: of sort of the improvement of their everyday life overshadows

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Speaker 4: everything else. For example, during the eight years of Law

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Speaker 4: and Justice rule, wages have nearly doubled, jobless rate has

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Speaker 4: fallen by a half, and the living standards have jumped

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Speaker 4: to eighty percent of the EU average, which is an

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Speaker 4: increase from about sixty nine percent from twenty fifteen when

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Speaker 4: the party took over. Over the last few months, we've

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Speaker 4: seen the Far Right Party rise in opinion polls. It's

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Speaker 4: now in the fourth place, and for example, their main

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Speaker 4: slogan was that every pole deserves a grill and a

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Speaker 4: holiday and a car basically, So that just kind of

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Speaker 4: explains the focus of the ruling party and even some

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Speaker 4: of the start up parties like the Far Right Party.

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Speaker 4: On sort of the economic aspect.

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Speaker 3: We've talked about how some of this is tension between

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Speaker 3: urban areas and more rural or suburban areas in the country,

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Speaker 3: and that's played out in some of the policies that

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Speaker 3: Law and Justice has enacted. Is that right.

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Speaker 5: Indeed, an important program that helped Lunch Justice get into

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Speaker 5: power in the first place was the so called program

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Speaker 5: of five hundred plus, which were benefits. They were paid

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Speaker 5: out to children, and it was an enormous hit with

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Speaker 5: the population, especially worsoff And. While this was mostly derided

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Speaker 5: by the people working in or living in urban areas

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Speaker 5: as a way to maybe just buy vote, for some

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Speaker 5: people in the rural areas it was life changing for

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Speaker 5: them because suddenly they could afford to travel, they could

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Speaker 5: afford to go on holiday with their children, they could

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Speaker 5: afford to buy them clothes.

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Speaker 4: In this election comes mainly over social issues. When the

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Speaker 4: government put in place one of the harshest abortion laws

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Speaker 4: in Europe, it led to the biggest post communist protests

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Speaker 4: in Poland of mainly women saying how angry they were

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Speaker 4: with just how far the government was going and curbing

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Speaker 4: their rights.

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Speaker 1: Thousands of women took to the streets of Polish capital

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Speaker 1: of Warsaw and a dozen of other Polish cities to

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Speaker 1: protest against a nine month old strict abortion law after

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Speaker 1: a pregnant woman's death reignited public debate on the issue.

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Speaker 4: So we have seen some discontent, but mainly over issues

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Speaker 4: such as abortions or the strong language used against LGBTQ

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Speaker 4: communities and sometimes against migrants.

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Speaker 3: Andrea, You're right that another of the very big issues

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Speaker 3: in this election has to do with Poland's relationship with Ukraine,

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Speaker 3: which used to be very close and now seems to

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Speaker 3: be fraying a bit.

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Speaker 4: We've seen it gone slightly sour of the last few

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Speaker 4: months over issues such as grain shipments and relations of

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Speaker 4: leaders of Poland and President Zelensky and Ukraine.

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Speaker 6: Poland has suggested that it will no longer provide weapons

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Speaker 6: to Ukraine. Prime Minister Matteyosh Mortovyetsky made the comments after

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Speaker 6: days of antagonistic statements between the two countries.

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Speaker 4: He told them partially this could just be because of

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Speaker 4: the elections, because the ruling party has realized that some

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Speaker 4: of its competitors have been decrying the amount of help

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Speaker 4: that this government is giving Ukraine, and that has resonated

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Speaker 4: with some voters. So they've tweaked their language slightly to

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Speaker 4: be less Ukrainie and friendly. They have actually said they

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Speaker 4: might cut paid for refugees who still remain in the country.

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Speaker 4: So we have seen some shift, but a lot of

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Speaker 4: it could be attributed to the election campaign, and it

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Speaker 4: is to be seen how after the election is over,

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Speaker 4: what these relationship with Ukraine, how it will evolve.

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Speaker 5: The sort of the conflict that we're seeing right now

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Speaker 5: has been in the making for the past few months,

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Speaker 5: after more and more grain from Ukraine started coming into

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Speaker 5: Poland because of the fact that ports in the Black

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Speaker 5: Sea were blocked and Ukraine couldn't export its grain out

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Speaker 5: in this direction, and once so much grain ended up

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Speaker 5: on the Polish market, farmers got terribly upset. Obviously, farmers

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Speaker 5: are an important constituency for the ruling party. They are

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Speaker 5: key to this party success in this election, and the

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Speaker 5: government had to do something. So what they did was

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Speaker 5: they imposed a ban.

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Speaker 7: Poland, Slovakia and Hungary say they're banning the import and

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Speaker 7: transit of grain from Ukraine to protect their own agricultural sectors.

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Speaker 7: As comes after local farmers complained of grain coming from

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Speaker 7: the war torn country being sold below market price.

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Speaker 5: The ban has continued, the EU approved of it for

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Speaker 5: a while, but in mid September the ban expired and

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Speaker 5: at that point the government basically said we'll go ahead

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Speaker 5: and continue restricting imports of Ukrainian grain into Poland. That

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Speaker 5: was the point where tensions really exploded. The question is

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Speaker 5: how much of this is related to the election and

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Speaker 5: how much of that damage will stay on after the

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Speaker 5: votes are cast.

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Speaker 3: After the break. How the ruling party uses state run

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Speaker 3: media to spread its message Andrea, you right that another

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Speaker 3: way that the Law and Justice Party has really been

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Speaker 3: able to spread its message around the country and gain

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Speaker 3: popularity is in the way it has control over some

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Speaker 3: of the country's press.

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Speaker 4: Exactly, the party controls the state around television, It has

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Speaker 4: its own loyal newspapers, and in these media it gets

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Speaker 4: complementary coverage. No hard questions are asked, none of its

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Speaker 4: decisions are questioned, and the opposition has complained that it

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Speaker 4: does not have the same access to public media, which

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Speaker 4: is very important thing in Poland because that's how voters

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Speaker 4: in a country of thirty eight million people still consume news.

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Speaker 4: And if you are not on public television, then you

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Speaker 4: don't have a way at least that's what the opposition

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Speaker 4: claims to spread the message and kind of offer a

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Speaker 4: different position to that of the government.

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Speaker 5: Indeed, the role of the state TV is really important

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Speaker 5: this election. The opposition has repeatedly accused both the state

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Speaker 5: TV and the ruling party of essentially spreading their propaganda

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Speaker 5: through state TV. We've seen reports from media monitoring groups

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Speaker 5: coming from the EU which said that in that sense,

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Speaker 5: the opposition doesn't really get equal access to what is

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Speaker 5: state run media. And there is also the fact that

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Speaker 5: the ruling party has created a certain ecosystem of newspapers

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Speaker 5: and media outlets that's providing a favorable coverage for them.

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Speaker 3: Tell us about the opposition that's trying to unseat Law and.

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Speaker 5: Justice, The opposition is first of all fragmented. There are

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Speaker 5: right now four parties vying for rule Poland. They failed

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Speaker 5: to unite before the election. But the main opposition party

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Speaker 5: that everyone is talking about the civic platform, it's the

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Speaker 5: party led by former European Council President Donald Tusk. He

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Speaker 5: used to be Poland's Prime minister before Law and Justice

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Speaker 5: took power. The opposition main message and their electorate is

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Speaker 5: obviously focused very much in the urban areas. They stand

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Speaker 5: for the EU. So the way they are trying to

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Speaker 5: pitch their message to the electorate is this populist government

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Speaker 5: will with their policies in the end lead Poland out

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Speaker 5: of the EU, and we as the opposition, stand in

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Speaker 5: favor of the EU and what we want to do

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Speaker 5: after the election if we win the election we want

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Speaker 5: to make sure that we have peace with the EU,

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Speaker 5: that we are once again considered a party where the

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Speaker 5: laws are being followed, where we can work together, and

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Speaker 5: where its voice is being heard in Brussels, so that

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Speaker 5: we can work together with the EU. And this message

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Speaker 5: obviously is very unlimited in its scope because it's very

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Speaker 5: much focused on the urban voter who is mostly wealthy,

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Speaker 5: and the opposition has been having a lot of problems

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Speaker 5: by trying to expand that message beyond that core electorate.

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Speaker 3: When we come back, how the election's outcome could affect

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Speaker 3: Poland's relationship with the rest of Europe. So people head

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Speaker 3: to the polls this Sunday, How does the election work?

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Speaker 3: What happens from here?

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Speaker 5: The ruling Land just has been ahead with the opposition

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Speaker 5: Civic Platform behind, and it seems like once the polls

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Speaker 5: are closed and the votes are counted, we may be

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Speaker 5: in a situation where neither of the two parties have

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Speaker 5: the majority and will be forced to seek a coalition partner.

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Speaker 5: At this point, the Justice will have the first pick

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Speaker 5: at forming the coalition, or if they have the majority

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Speaker 5: in the lower house of Parliament, then they obviously have

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Speaker 5: the majority they can form the government. The situation based

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Speaker 5: on the opinion post suggests that we might be in

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Speaker 5: a situation where neither of the two main parties have

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Speaker 5: enough votes to actually have the majority in parliament, and

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Speaker 5: that might actually lead to a situation where we have weeks,

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Speaker 5: if not months, of uncertainty where parties talked to one

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Speaker 5: another and trying to form coalition. In that sense, the

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Speaker 5: opposition might have the upper hand because it's for parties

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Speaker 5: and they've claimed they want to work together to form

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Speaker 5: the government the Law and Justice. Their only option to

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Speaker 5: form a potential coalition if they're fall short of the

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Speaker 5: majority is far right Confederation Party, which as a matter

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Speaker 5: of fact said they don't want to be in any

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Speaker 5: government and they will play an important role in deciding whether,

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Speaker 5: if we don't have a majority for any of the

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Speaker 5: bigger parties, which party actually stays in the government.

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Speaker 3: Afterwards, Andrea, what does the outcome of this election mean

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Speaker 3: for Ukraine mean for Europe? What is it that you're

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Speaker 3: watching for in the weeks ahead.

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Speaker 4: I think this election, we could say, is the most

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Speaker 4: closely watched by Europe and Ukraine for the rest of

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Speaker 4: the year. It will decide whether Poland stays where it

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Speaker 4: is in kind of a strange position when it is

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Speaker 4: at oz with the EU but supports Ukraine on most issues,

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Speaker 4: Or whether if the opposition wins the reforms the government

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Speaker 4: later it will bring Poland back to the European mainstream,

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Speaker 4: or whether it will remain in this unique position of

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Speaker 4: being at oz with the EU and fighting with the

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Speaker 4: EU but at the same time supporting the EU when

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Speaker 4: it comes to helping Ukraine.

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Speaker 5: What's at stake for Ukraine is whether the path that

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Speaker 5: we've seen before the election was just electioneering and an

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Speaker 5: attempt by the ruling party to attract more fire right voters,

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Speaker 5: or maybe a sign of things to come, Whether that's

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Speaker 5: the sign of a certain fatigue within a society and

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Speaker 5: Poland will really reduce its aid for Ukraine. It doesn't

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Speaker 5: seem likely, given that it's in Poland's strategic interest to

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Speaker 5: support Ukraine. It's probably something that Ukraine leadership will really

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Speaker 5: look for.

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Speaker 4: If you look at the map of Ukraine at its

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Speaker 4: western border with the EU, some of the states you

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Speaker 4: have Hungary, for example, which is not as supportive of

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Speaker 4: Ukraine as the EU would like. Slovakia just elected its

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Speaker 4: former prime minister to office again and it's a leader

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Speaker 4: who says that his country will no longer expert weapons

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Speaker 4: and provide weapons to Ukraine. And when you look at Poland,

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Speaker 4: the question is just how much aid and help Ukraine

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Speaker 4: can count on going forward, especially at a time when

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Speaker 4: we've seen some steps in the US that are not

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Speaker 4: as favorable in continuing the aid. And some of you

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Speaker 4: members are even getting weary and tired of helping Ukraine

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Speaker 4: in the war that may stretch for years to come.

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Speaker 3: Andrea Pot, thanks so much for giving us a view

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Speaker 3: of this really important election. Thank you, thank you, thanks

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Speaker 3: for listening to us here at The Big Take. It's

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Speaker 3: us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg dot net.

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Speaker 3: Our original music was composed by Leo Sidrin, I'm wes Kasova.

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Speaker 3: We'll be back on Monday with another big take. Have

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Speaker 3: a great weekend.