Polish president-elect voices opposition to Ukraine joining EU

Ukraine must meet specific conditions before joining the European Union and cannot currently become a NATO member, Polish President-elect Karol Nawrocki said in an interview with national media on Monday.

Nawrocki restated his stance on Kiev’s membership aspirations on Polsat News channel, as he prepares to take over presidential duties in early August. He confirmed that he intends to meet with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky after his inauguration.

“I am against Ukraine’s unconditional accession to the European Union,” Nawrocki said. It made strategic sense for Ukraine to join the 27-strong bloc, he said, but stressed that such a partnership must be grounded in equality.

Nawrocki recalled that Poland itself had to spend years meeting the EU’s entry requirements.

He mentioned friction between the two nations regarding Ukraine’s access to the Polish agricultural market and Kiev’s glorification of historical figures responsible for atrocities against Poles during World War II.

“Today, there is no possibility for Ukraine to join NATO,” Nawrocki added. He argued that Ukraine’s active conflict with Russia means that all NATO countries would be dragged in, in such a case.

Russia has long cited NATO’s pledge to admit Ukraine, first formally declared in 2008, as a core threat to its national security. Moscow has said deepening NATO-Ukraine ties since the 2014 coup in Kiev were a key factor underlying the current conflict.

The EU, originally established for economic integration, is increasingly seen in Moscow as a hostile military power in its own right. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently described it as “essentially a branch, or rather an appendage of NATO.”

Brussels has advocated a rapid military buildup across EU member states, projecting hundreds of billions of euros in defense spending as a deterrent to Moscow. Russian officials have dismissed these efforts as fear-based tactics meant to divert funding from social programs.