Polish president renews referendum push on EU climate policy with revised question

Polish President Karol Nawrocki has submitted a second request to the Senate for a nationwide referendum on whether Poland should continue implementing the European Union's climate policies, proposing 27 September 2026 as the voting date. The move comes after the upper house rejected his first attempt in May, when senators argued the proposed question was leading and 'absurd'.

A revised question but a loaded ballot

The original question asked voters whether they favoured 'implementing EU climate policy, which has led to an increase in citizens' cost of living, energy prices and the cost of running business and agricultural activity'. Critics in the Senate said it was designed to elicit a specific answer. The new version is shorter: 'Are you in favour of Poland implementing the European Union's climate policy?' Nawrocki told reporters on Thursday that he was 'looking for compromises, looking for solutions' and that the revised wording 'does not suggest anything'.

That neutrality ends at the ballot paper. Nawrocki's proposal includes explanatory text telling voters what a 'yes' or 'no' answer would mean in practice. A 'yes' vote, the paper would state, means 'Poland bearing costs estimated at 3.5 trillion zloty by 2040', 'burdens on agriculture', 'increasing costs for industry' and 'obligations for owners of buildings'. The framing makes clear the president's intention: to present EU climate policy as a financial burden rather than a collective European project.

The constitutional hurdle

Under Article 125 of the Polish constitution, the president may call a referendum only with the approval of a majority of senators in a vote where at least half of the 100-member chamber is present. The ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk controls 63 seats in the Senate. That arithmetic makes approval of any Nawrocki initiative highly improbable. The president, elected last year with backing from the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, has regularly vetoed government bills and clashed with Tusk's administration. The Senate rejected his first referendum proposal in May; there is little reason to expect a different outcome this time.

ETS reform: technical adjustments or a change of direction?

The referendum push coincides with a live debate over the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), the bloc's flagship carbon-pricing mechanism. On 17 July the European Commission unveiled changes intended to soften the scheme's impact on households and businesses. The Polish government welcomed the package. Climate Minister Paulina Hennig-Kloska described it as a 'milestone step' and the result of 'consistent action by Poland and building a strong coalition of states in the EU'.

Nawrocki disagrees. In his written justification for the new referendum proposal, he wrote that he had 'given the government time' in its push for ETS reform, but the final result was simply 'technical adjustments' that postpone some elements but do 'not change the direction' or ultimate outcome. 'ETS will remain an increasingly expensive, increasingly extensive system, and increasingly burdensome for the Polish economy,' he wrote. The president's dismissal of the Commission's package underscores a deeper disagreement: whether the EU's climate architecture can be reformed from within or must be confronted head-on.

The Commission's proposals include expanding the scope of the Social Climate Fund and adjusting the Market Stability Reserve, measures designed to cushion price spikes for vulnerable households and small businesses. Warsaw had pushed for a more fundamental redesign, including a delay to the extension of ETS to transport and buildings (ETS2). The final package falls short of that demand. For the government, it is a step forward; for Nawrocki and PiS, it is evidence that Brussels will not yield on the fundamentals.

PiS wants out; the government says that means leaving the EU

The main opposition party, Law and Justice, has called for Poland to unilaterally withdraw from the ETS. PiS politicians describe the system as making Poles 'a cash machine for absurd leftist climate policies'. When in government between 2015 and 2023, PiS oversaw a significant expansion of renewable energy capacity and agreed to the EU's 2030 climate targets. In opposition, the party has disowned those commitments and returned to emphasising coal as a pillar of energy security.

Government figures warn that unilateral withdrawal from ETS is legally impossible without either accruing enormous fines or leaving the European Union entirely. Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski put it bluntly: 'as the Brits have learned, the Europhobe's dream world, in which one enjoys all the privileges of EU membership without any obligations, does not exist.' The reference to Brexit is deliberate. Sikorski, a former European Parliament president and Marshall Fund scholar, has long argued that the economic costs of EU exit are systematically underestimated by its advocates.

Reactions: fraud or democratic right?

Stanisław Gawłowski, a senator from Tusk's Civic Coalition, called the referendum 'pure fraud'. 'There is no possibility of one country suspending part of EU law,' he wrote. The legal point is sound: EU regulations have direct effect in member states, and a national referendum cannot override them. A 'no' vote would create a political crisis without a legal mechanism to implement the result.

Przemysław Czarnek, deputy leader of PiS, welcomed the initiative. 'On such fundamental matters as climate policy, Poles should decide, not Brussels bureaucrats,' he wrote. The framing, Brussels versus the people, mirrors the rhetoric used by PiS during the rule-of-law disputes with the Commission between 2017 and 2023. Then, as now, the party portrays EU institutions as remote and illegitimate, while positioning itself as the defender of national sovereignty.

A campaign tool disguised as a constitutional instrument

Nawrocki's presidency has been defined by confrontation with the Tusk government. He has vetoed legislation on judicial appointments, media reform and liberalised abortion access. Each veto has been overridden by the Sejm, the lower house, where the coalition holds a majority. The Senate, where the coalition also dominates, is the only chamber where the president's referral power can stop a process before it starts. By submitting a referendum proposal he knows will fail, Nawrocki generates headlines, frames the government as anti-democratic for blocking a 'people's vote', and keeps the cost-of-climate-policy narrative alive.

The timing is deliberate. The European Parliament elections in 2024 saw PiS finish first but lose ground to the centrist Third Way and the left. The party's strategists believe energy costs, heating bills, petrol prices, industrial competitiveness, are the issue that can win back voters in small towns and rural areas where PiS once dominated. Climate policy is the proxy. A referendum that never happens can still shape the conversation.

What the numbers actually say

The 3.5 trillion zloty estimate comes from a 2023 analysis commissioned by the Ministry of Climate and Environment under the previous government. It models the cumulative cost of the Fit for 55 package, ETS2, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, tighter effort-sharing targets, and the phase-out of free allowances, assuming no behavioural change, no innovation, and full cost pass-through to final consumers. The same analysis shows that recycling ETS revenues through the Social Climate Fund and the Modernisation Fund reduces the net burden by roughly 40%. The ballot paper does not mention that. Nor does it note that Poland has received over €60 billion in EU cohesion and climate funds since 2021, or that Polish exporters benefit from the single market's regulatory harmonisation. A referendum question can be neutral; the information attached to it rarely is.

The European Commission's impact assessment for the ETS2 extension estimates an average carbon cost increase of €0.10-0.12 per litre of petrol and €0.15-0.18 per cubic metre of gas for households in 2027, before revenue recycling. For a typical Polish household consuming 1,500 cubic metres of gas and 1,200 litres of fuel annually, that is roughly €300-400 per year at current prices. The Social Climate Fund, financed by ETS2 auction revenues, is designed to offset that for the poorest 20-30% of households. Whether the fund is large enough, and whether Poland's administration can distribute it efficiently, are open questions. They are not the questions on the ballot.