It was with obvious pride that Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk took to social media on February 6.
Sharing a picture of an article in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung titled “The Poles Are Coming”, he wrote: “See how this phrase has changed over the past 30 years. The German press reports that our companies are increasingly taking over established Western brands, not the other way around. Poland is coming to its senses.”
The article he referenced was about an apparently growing trend: Polish companies acquiring and buying stakes in Western companies, including many in Germany.
According to data compiled by Bloomberg, companies from Poland announced 22 acquisitions in Western Europe last year, the most on record. Germany has been a particular target, accounting for nine deals.
Dominik KopiÅ„ski, senior advisor at the Polish Economic Institute and professor of economics at the University of Wroclaw, saidĀ it is hard not to conclude that such headlines expressed a “watershed moment” in Polish-German economic relations.
“Twenty years ago, when Poland was a new entrant to the EU, such a scenario would have been hard to fathom,” he told DW. He saidĀ the new generation of Polish business leaders was not concerned by old German stereotypes about the Polish economy.
“They do not feel intimidated or constrained by any lingering sense of inferiority. They take opportunities when they see them and, more importantly, they are trailblazing for other companies, setting an example,” he said.
“If this continues, what we may be witnessing is not simply a series of transactions, but more a generational shift in how Polish firms see their place in Europe,”Ā KopiÅ„ski added.
‘At a certain point, it’s difficult to grow organically’
One of the Polish companies which haveĀ been busy with acquisitions is the Spyrosoft Group, a mid-sized WrocÅ‚aw-based IT services firm.
It acquired the assets and business operations of the Berlin-based embeddeers GmbH, a development services provider specializing in the automotive sector. Spyrosoft is also in the final stages of acquiring another German company.
Meanwhile, in November 2025, it bought the US firm Carimus, a digital services agency headquartered in North Carolina.
“At a certain point, it’s very difficult for companies to grow organically, so they have to acquire,” Kevin Dabrowski, Spyrosoft’s senior marketing partner, told DW.
“We have about 2,000 employees, so we’re not massive yet, but these acquisitions help us grow at a pace that satisfies us.”
He said that another part of the strategy is to acquire in already-developed local markets, rather than to start there from scratch.
“It helps us to grow and expand and also to find interesting clients and obviously, destinations,” he said. “Being present locally has shown us that it helps to do business in places like Germany, the UK or the US. We think that it’s very important to be present there physically as well.”
Poland’s economic success story
Dominik KopiÅ„ski said while it’s a bit too early to say if the acquisitions are part of a clear trend, such a development is overdue.
“More Polish firms venturing abroad, looking for acquisitions and planting themselves more firmly in the European market ecosystem, is something we should already be witnessing,” he said.
The context, he said, is Poland’s rapid economic growth and continued economic convergence with Western Europe. In 2025, Poland’s real GDP rose by 3.6% year-on-year, around 2% more than the EU.
Since it joined the European Union in 2004, Poland’s average annual GDP growth has been almost 4%, a rate that has accelerated over the past decade. Its stock market is also surging.
Key to Poland’s success story, according to KopiÅ„ski,Ā is its strong domestic market.Ā “This is a big, fast-growing market, the sixth-largest economy in the EU, and for many Polish companies it brings food to the table,” he said.
“Most of them do not have an inherent appetite to seek economies of scale abroad when they can still find them locally. It takes a more adventurous mindset and lower risk aversion to venture abroad.”
Kevin Dabrowski said it’s also important to consider the acquisitions in the context of a key shifting dynamic within the Polish economy, which is no longer a place where foreign companies seek cheaper IT services.
“We were viewed as that country, but right now, we’re not really that market anymore because this perspective is switching to India,” he said. “That’s where you can get cost-effective IT services, and Poland is not that place anymore.”
FDI out of Poland
It remains to be seen if and when Poland will become an economy thatĀ invests more in other economies than other economies invest in it over the longer term.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) into Poland fell in 2024, as it did in other European countries. According to Katarzyna Rzentarzewska, chief macro analyst for Central and Eastern Europe at Erste Group, some of the reasons for the decline in capital inflows into Poland were rising labor costs, high energy prices, and high debt servicing costs due to interest rates.
Dominik Kopiński notes that Poland has long been the regional leader for attracting FDI, receiving around $400 billion in FDI since 1989. However, he thinks the recent acquisitions may point to a long-anticipated turning point.
“If you look at the trajectories of more mature economies, there is usually a tipping point at which outward FDI starts accelerating.
“It eventually catches up with ā€” and sometimes even exceeds ā€” the stock of inward FDI. We have been waiting rather impatiently for this take-off. It may well be that this chapter is now opening before our eyes.”
Edited by: Andreas Becker