It was with obvious pride that Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk posted on social media on February 6, sharing a picture of a Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung article 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 highlighted an emerging trend: Polish companies acquiring stakes in Western firms, particularly in Germany. Bloomberg data show Polish firms announced 22 acquisitions in Western Europe last year, the most on record, with Germany accounting for nine of those deals.
Dominik Kopiński, senior advisor at the Polish Economic Institute and professor at the University of Wroclaw, said such headlines could mark a “watershed moment” in Polish-German economic relations. Twenty years ago, when Poland was a new EU member, this scenario would have been hard to imagine, he said. A new generation of Polish business leaders no longer feels constrained by old stereotypes about the Polish economy; they pursue opportunities and set examples for others.
“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,” Kopiński added.
One active acquirer is Spyrosoft Group, a mid-sized Wroclaw-based IT services firm. It bought the assets and operations of Berlin-based embeddeers GmbH and is finalizing another German acquisition. In November 2025, it also acquired Carimus, a digital services agency in North Carolina, US.
“At a certain point, it’s very difficult for companies to grow organically, so they have to acquire,” said Kevin Dabrowski, Spyrosoft’s senior marketing partner. With about 2,000 employees, Spyrosoft is using acquisitions to grow faster than organic expansion allows. Acquiring established local players helps the company access clients and markets in Germany, the UK, and the US, he said, noting the importance of a physical presence in those markets.
Kopiński said it may be premature to declare a clear, long-term trend, but the development is overdue. More Polish firms seeking acquisitions abroad and embedding themselves in the European market ecosystem is something Poland should already have been doing, he said.
The backdrop is Poland’s rapid economic growth and continued convergence with Western Europe. In 2025, Poland’s real GDP rose by 3.6% year-on-year, about 2 percentage points higher than the EU average. Since joining the EU in 2004, Poland’s average annual GDP growth has been nearly 4%, accelerating over the past decade, and its stock market is surging.
Key to Poland’s success is its strong domestic market. “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,” Kopiński said. Many firms do not feel an urgent need to scale abroad when opportunities remain at home; venturing overseas requires a more adventurous mindset and lower risk aversion.
Dabrowski also pointed to a structural shift in perceptions of Poland’s IT sector. Poland was once seen primarily as a source of lower-cost IT services, but that role is shifting toward countries like India. “We’re not really that market anymore because this perspective is switching to India,” he said.
It remains uncertain whether Poland will reach a point where its outward foreign direct investment (FDI) exceeds inward flows in the long term. FDI into Poland fell in 2024, mirroring declines across Europe. Katarzyna Rzentarzewska, chief macro analyst for Central and Eastern Europe at Erste Group, cited rising labor costs, high energy prices, and increased debt servicing costs from higher interest rates as factors reducing capital inflows.
Poland has long led the region in attracting FDI—receiving around $400 billion since 1989—but Kopiński believes the recent spate of acquisitions may signal a long-anticipated turning point. Mature economies often reach a tipping point where outward FDI accelerates and eventually catches up with or exceeds 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