Europe | Winds of change

Why Poland is Becoming Less Central European and More Baltic

At over 260 metres in height, the wind turbines rising out of the Baltic Sea, north of Łeba, a Polish resort town, are among the world’s biggest. Installed more than 20 kilometres from the coast, they are hardly an eyesore, unless you have a strong pair of binoculars or are named Donald Trump, or both. Beachgoers in Łeba seem more bothered by the unseasonably cold weather.

The turbines, part of a wind farm project called Baltic Power, are expected to go online next year and generate enough energy to power 1.5 million homes. They are also markers in a changing economic and geopolitical landscape. Poland has long been viewed as a central European country. But as its green transition begins to take hold, and the fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine settles across the region, the country’s centre of gravity is starting to move north, towards the Baltic Sea.