🇵🇱 Poland

Poland is the textbook emigration state: post-2004, an estimated 1.5–2 million Poles (predominantly young, educated) left for the UK, Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands, which is exactly why unemployment collapsed from ~20% in 2003 to ~3% today — the denominator of disgruntled youth physically exited the country. The 12.6% youth unemployment and its rapid rise from 8.4% in 12 periods means those who stayed are struggling and more will leave, accelerating brain drain. The 500+ family benefit briefly bumped fertility above replacement in 2017, but TFR has since slid back below 1.4, and a 42.4 median age with 32.7% old-age dependency means Poland is aging faster than it can afford while its most productive workers are still voting with their passports toward Frankfurt logistics hubs.

Poland has a National AI Strategy (updated versions) but implementation is anaemic, digital infrastructure lags Western Europe, and no meaningful retraining pipeline exists for the IT services and BPO sectors that constitute a major chunk of modern growth. Tusk's government is preoccupied with rule-of-law disputes, Ukraine, and defence — AI industrial policy is a footnote, and Poland's AI Act implementation is widely seen as a Brussels compliance exercise rather than strategic intent.