Defunct Historical The AGROunion (Polish: AGROunia, AU) is a left-wing[16] agrarian socialist[17] political movement in Poland formed by Michał Kołodziejczak.

[27] This pushed the party's hitherto ambiguous stance on social issues in a liberal direction: in August 2023, AGROunia stated its support for abortion on demand up to the 12th week of pregnancy.

Excluded from the party during his term of office, Kołodziejczak created the "Vegetable-Potato Union" (Polish: Unia Warzywno-Ziemniaczana) in 2018, which organized protests against the government's policy of culling pigs to fight the African swine fever virus.

The protest was caused by the poor situation of Polish farmers due to several factors - the prolonged consequences of sanctions imposed on Russia, the African swine fever epidemic and the government's belated response to it, as well as the change of the Minister of Agriculture in 2018.

AGROunia also started discussing the problems of land ownership, especially in context of income inquality in the Polish countryside and the domination of large landowners.

AGROunia accentuated that high prices are dictated by large retailers rather than by farmers, and argued that this problem could be solved by extensive regulation and stave intervention, together with restructurization of the Polish economy that would empower local producers and give people more control over production.

In addition to campaigning on the issue of "food sovereignty", the party also focused on ecology and social justice, which was noted as "green leftist" discourse by the media.

Together with the party's extensive connections with trade unions and presence of socialist activists in the convention, Polityka argued that AGROunia clearly evokes the "agrarian left" alignment of Samoobrona.

Magdalena Sroka of Porozumienie cited the left-wing orientation of AGROunia, and the fact that its program was to be developed by the socialist economist Jan Zygmuntowski, as the main reasons for ending the coalition.

Polish political scientist Rafał Chwedoruk praised this decision, arguing that a coalition with AGROunia will help the Civic Platform appeal to rural voters, who hitherto considered the party elitist and urban-centric.

[68] The League of Polish Families is a far-right National Catholic party based on right-wing populism and the concept of "national solidarism", which it defines as "the introduction of a state system based on consistently applied Christian morality; its principles would lead to the spiritual renewal of society and the elimination of all forms of pathology in social life - corruption and crime, bureaucracy and mass abortions".

[70] As a result, several Civic Coalition MPs demanded that Giertych, hitherto a far-right pro-life politician, change his views on abortion if he is to stand as a candidate on the KO list.

[74] In September 2023, the president of the Civic Coalition, Donald Tusk, and the head of AGROunia, Michał Kołodziejczak, announced a fight to extend the ban on Ukrainian grain imports.

Announcing his plan to meet EU authorities in Brussels, Kołodziejczak stated: "I will prove that it is possible to talk to the European Union in a normal, civilised way, but on firm terms, without building up conflicts".

[78] While this decision was largely expected given Kołodziejczak's experience in agriculture, political commentators question the future of AGROunia which had its leader enter the government despite being an anti-establishment party.

Aiming at "protecting animals from pain and suffering", the bill proposes a ban on tethering dogs and using fireworks, as well as introducing new forms of pet population control.

[87] The project is fiercely opposed by Polish farmers, who criticize it as economically unsound and aiming at reducing animal husbandry in all forms in Poland.

[89] It was also compared to other left-wing parties - Łukasz Pawłowski, head of the Institute for Public Affairs Research, described AGROunia as a "rural Left Together.

[23] Zygmuntowski also described himself as a socialist, and praised AGROunia for expressing "a real folk sentiment for rebellion, dissent, but with a higher class consciousness".

"[93] Kołodziejczak described AGROunia as "the true left, which represents the trade unions" and as a party heavily inspired by Andrzej Lepper and his left-wing nationalist and Christian socialist Samoobrona movement.

The farmers associated with the organization support the determination of the required number of Polish products in supermarkets and demand strict compliance with the standards of labeling food with the flag of origin.

[19] AGROunia generally supports the European Union and opposes potential Polexit,[95] but believes that some of its policies are harmful to farmers and wants to curb the influence of foreign capital on Polish industries.

AGROunia aims to introduce a legislation that would make it mandatory for food stores to have at least 70 % of their products come from Poland, and to decentralise strategic suppliers to prevent monopolies.

Kołodziejczak stated that such law would be "for those who do not have housing, and not as it has been done for 30 years - for developers, for rich people who make money from building, renting and selling flats".

[93] In 2021, Michał Kołodziejczak wrote: AGROunia is one of the more dynamically developing trade unions in Poland, which was established on the basis of an authentic people's movement.

Polish workers go on strike less often than citizens of Western European countries, but also "Koreans, famous for their subordination, exaggerated respect for hierarchy and superiors".

Kołodziejczak listed high prices, lack of housing and the fact that "hard work does not equal a decent paycheck" as main social problems of modern Poland, which make a new Samoobrona-like coalition possible.

Head of the Institute for Public Affairs Research Łukasz Pawłowski pointed at the left-wing character of AGROunia, describing it as "rural Left Together".

[103] It seeks to compete with the Polish People's Party, which under Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz's leadership has moved away from its traditional agrarian base to economic liberalism and a "rational center".

Leader of AGROunia, Michał Kołodziejczak, stated: "I remember poverty, credit, collecting money from family because you had to pay back the credit, I remember Leszek Balcerowicz talking about the economic transformation, which pushed us into poverty for many years, but it was good for him, because who privatised Polmos for a few zlotys, factories, PGRs, tenement houses in the cities, blocks of flats, who privatised the health service?!