>Besides - Poland is one of the few countries in EU that haven't had budget surplus in last few years despite the economic boom in EU.

Money remained in the private economy rather than in the central budget? Is that your point here?

>>>marginalized Poland outside of EU. And that in turn ends with Poland (...) - as a "proudly independent" vassal state of Russia.

>Look at any independent rating regarding media freedom, rule of law, tolerance. We are changing towards Russia.

Shifted goalposts. Of course we need to exit EU before the EU crashes. Good thing we haven't switched to euro yet, and we're building a competing block in the form of V4 and external trade ties. Nobody here trusts Russia enough to go join their block; certainly we remember history and current events in there.

As for "low freedom, rule of law, tolerance" - that's why I noted the government pays attention and reacts to peaceful citizen protests, while not heeding to EU's (and other external actors') pressure too much. That's how it's supposed to be ran in regard to internal politics. Facts over words, and if you still prefer the ratings ratings over observable reality, I have a bundle of 2006-vintage, AAA-rated mortgage-backed securities to sell to you.

>government intolerance toward independent or critical reporting

>excessive political interference in the affairs of public media

Public media are the minority of media. Every government packs KRRiT. The previous team wasn't any more neutral, it just was speaking in other tone. Which is the whole point of the OP - "is language representative of actual socio-political changes?" Wake me up when the nationalization gets any traction in the society.

>and restrictions on speech regarding Polish history and identity

Holocaust lies were prohibited in Germany and other countries well before in Poland. We're catching up in that regard, if anything.

>increased self-censorship and polarization

There's no discussion of police monitoring, nor of straight up delegalization of whole political party in Poland, again unlike certain western countries. We still seem to hold higher plurality standards, and for that we suffer from the Popper's paradox of tolerance towards intolerance to certain political options, as witnessed in this discussion.

>> We've even managed to hold our own against EU's meddling in our internal politics, during recent changes to the judiciary

>Or, if you aren't brainwashed - we managed to destroy independent judiciary and still remain in EU (for now). Great job.

Not a great job; I was disappointed in how it was rushed and kind of botched. Nonetheless, the point of protecting internal politics from foreign meddling still stands. Contrast that with, for example, Italy and Greece.

>The rest of the European countries seem to exist as well. Maybe try to travel more :)

With much weakened political scenes and societies split along partisan lines; with low trust and dialogues in the nation, and towards immigrants; with Chemnitz and all that. Meanwhile here in Poland we trade with the immigrants just fine, and when that one immigrant was attacked, it was huge shock to everybody, decried widely, and stayed in the news for several cycles.

>> war refugees from our neighbor, the Ukraine

>economic refugees (...) Still a good thing, but changes nothing.

It's an observable fact that we and them integrate just fine. While opinions peddled online would have you believe we are some sort of xenophobes by default.

Have a nice day, ajuc; I'm off to buy a coffee from Nadia at the Żabka.