The country rose an impressive nine places in the GPI rankings and is now ranked 17th in Europe and 24th overall. Poland had the largest increase in peacefulness amongst the 25 most peaceful countries in the world. This increase in peacefulness was driven by improvements on the GPI’s Safety and Security domain. The majority of indicators in domain improved, with the largest improvement occurring in the violent crime indicator. Poland has one of the lowest violent crime rates in Europe, with particularly low levels of vandalism and arson. Its homicide rate is also one of the lowest in the world.
The level of violent demonstrations also fell, with violent civil unrest remaining rare in the post-communist era. While the total number of demonstrations have increased since 2015, they have tended to remain non-violent. Most recently, large demonstrations occurred regarding legislation that criminalised the abortion of foetuses with congenital deficits. The country’s Militarisation domain improved slightly, owing to a large improvement in Poland’s commitment to UN Peacekeeping Funding. However, despite these improvements, Poland recorded deteriorations on the military expenditure and weapons imports indicators. Of the 35 countries in the European region, Poland has the fifth highest military expenditure as a percentage of GDP.
Read more about Poland in the Global Peace Index 2021 report.
