Poland's Election Had a Surprise Winner: the EU

Rumors of the death of a united Europe have once more proved to be exaggerated. In a big way.  

Poland, the giant of postcommunist East Europe and the European Union’s No. 5 economy, pulled a 180 in Sunday’s parliamentary election. An opposition coalition led by Donald Tusk, who became European Council president after his last stint as Polish prime minister, looks set to wrest power from incumbent Mateusz Morawiecki, who was fond of declaring himself “fed up with the diktats of European bureaucracy.” 

The poll stems an “illiberal,” Euroskeptic tide that seemed to be sweeping Europe’s eastern flank with recent election victories for Viktor Orban in Hungary and Robert Fico in Slovakia. It likely quashes any possibility that Poland would break with the EU consensus on backing Ukraine. “The results are signaling that Poland is coming back to the heart of Europe,” says Eoin Drea, senior researcher at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies. 

Markets liked the result, too. The iShares MSCI Poland exchange-traded fund (ticker: EPOL) jumped 7% on Monday.