European Parliament President Roberta Metsola spoke before Poland's Sejm on Friday, 6 November 2026, telling lawmakers that Poland had been vindicated in its long-standing warnings about Russia. Her address came during the 68th sitting of the lower house, after she was welcomed by Sejm Marshal Włodzimierz Czarzasty, according to WP Wiadomości.
The visit also included a morning meeting with Czarzasty and a scheduled meeting with President Karol Nawrocki, WP Wiadomości reported. During her parliamentary speech, some Law and Justice (PiS) MPs held up banners in English reading that a coup instigated by Donald Tusk was under way in Poland. WP Wiadomości reports that a sign reading "Tusk=dictator" and a photograph of police outside the Constitutional Tribunal were also displayed.
Why it matters
The speech placed Poland's relationship with the European Union at the centre of a domestic political confrontation. Metsola used the Sejm rostrum to credit Poland for its earlier reading of the Russian threat, a message that aligns Warsaw's security arguments with Brussels' priorities. At the same time, the PiS protest turned the chamber into a stage for the party's dispute with Tusk's government, showing that the visit could not be separated from Poland's internal political fight.
Metsola invokes Szymborska and John Paul II
According to WP Wiadomości, Metsola opened her remarks by describing Poland as a proud nation that gave Europe its first modern written constitution and that never ceased to be Poland through 123 years of partition. She quoted the poet Wisława Szymborska's line that we know about ourselves only as much as we have been tested, and applied it to nations, saying few had been tested as thoroughly as Poland — which, in her words, has always emerged stronger from such trials.
WP Wiadomości reports that Metsola said the hardest steel is forged in the hottest fire, and that Polish steel, like the Polish spirit, is unyielding. She referred to the generation of Karol Wojtyła, the Polish pope, saying those who grew up in it know there is no contradiction between being a patriot and being a European. She recalled watching the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism, and said Solidarity embodied optimism for all Europeans, with the words "be not afraid" from the cardinal of Kraków who became pope guiding her generation.
"You were right" on Russia
The most pointed passage concerned Russia. Metsola said Poland had spotted the dangers far earlier than others and had warned Europe for years about Moscow, energy dependence and what the Kremlin was capable of, while too many in Europe did not listen. "You were right," she said, according to WP Wiadomości.
She also argued that the European project does not require uniformity, saying the point is to value differences, traditions, histories and languages, and that the project is not imposed from Brussels. Her generation, she said, knows what Europe looks like with and without the EU, and while the union is not perfect it must be open to reform and change — and the world with the EU is a better place.
Turning to young Poles, she said they speak three or four languages, treat others as equals and are open to the world while rooted in their own communities. "Polak potrafi," she added, citing the Polish saying.
Defence, budget and hybrid threats
Speaking after her meeting with Czarzasty, Metsola said rising hybrid threats were visible in Poland and elsewhere in Europe, and that Poland had long raised the alarm about dangers from the east while Europe now hears it, WP Wiadomości reports. She thanked Poland for leading on defence within both the EU and NATO, and noted that the European Parliament had adopted rules to strengthen European defence capabilities and industry and to improve international cooperation.
She said the Parliament is working on the long-term EU budget, on boosting Europe's competitiveness and on cutting bureaucracy, with the budget meant to respond to needs in energy, security and agriculture. She added that the aim is more funding for external border protection and for strengthening the EU's eastern flank.
The Polish president's office listed the meeting between Karol Nawrocki and Metsola among the day's events, and WP Wiadomości reported that Nawrocki was expected to raise the matter of the Constitutional Tribunal with her.
What to watch: whether Metsola's remarks on reform and the eastern flank translate into concrete budget commitments, and how the dispute aired in the Sejm shapes Poland's standing in Brussels.
