Today’s news round up in Poland

Start your day with a summary of today’s top stories from Poland’s leading news sites.

TVN24.pl- Private television news network TVN24 looked ahead to Poland’s first game in the football World Cup on Tuesday in Qatar. The Poles, who had a disappointing time in the last World Cup, kick off against Mexico. TVN24 points out that while Poland may still lack a settled side their rivals Mexico have bigger problems with one of their star players struggling with injury.

Wyborcza.pl – Companies are laying people off as they brace themselves for a tough economic period, the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza warned. It highlighted the example of bus producer MAN that is making 860 employees redundant at its plant in Starachowice, which is about 30 percent of the workforce. The reason for this is a dramatic drop in orders. In 2019 the firm sold 7,400 buses but in the first nine months of this year it sold 2,800.

Rp.pl - The newspaper Rzeczpospolita reported that the number of migrants trying to get into Poland across the Belarusian border has started to increase despite the construction of a fence. According to Border Guard figures cited by the newspaper, in August 793 people tried to cross the border. That number rose to 1,144 in September, last month it was 2,315 and November is expected to see another increase. One reason for the rise in numbers is the desire to get across the border before electronic surveillance equipment is deployed along the entire length of the fence.

TVPInfo.pl – In an interview for public broadcaster TVP Szymon Szynkowski vel Sek, the Polish European affairs minister, said that negotiations with Brussels over the unblocking of billions of euros earmarked for Poland from an EU post-pandemic recovery fund was "difficult". The minister said that Poland had laid its "red lines" that it would not cross. The talks are focused on a rule of law dispute that has led to the EU freezing Poland’s access to the money.