Morawiecki had to go back to the negotiation table. It is said that Poland would finance projects worth up to EUR 45 million to help prevent the loss of groundwater across the border caused by the mine, and would build screens to stop dust particles from polluting the air in the Czech Republic.
Both countries would also set up a committee of experts to determine the environmental impact of the mine. More than points belong to the Polish-Czech and Polish-German monitoring network, and measurements are taken twice a year. The European Commission has warned that a continuation of activity there beyond would mean the region would lose out on EU funds allocated for the green transition.
Despite the last minute cancellation of the election, the mail-in vote plan still cost Polish taxpayers dozens of millions of zlotys. The audit report suggests that top representatives of the government are to blame for wasting about PLN 76 million ca. EUR 17 million. Already in April NIK notified state prosecutors of possible crimes committed by the Polish Post and Polish Security Printing Works, the two state-controlled companies that were involved in printing and distributing the ballot papers.
The crime carries a potential prison sentence of up to three years. Whether Morawiecki and his three ministers are charged with crimes will now be decided by prosecutors, who are supervised and controlled by his biggest competitor within the government, justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro.
He has been investigated by the Central Anticorruption Bureau CBA over his personal assets, including a property that was reportedly used as house of prostitution read more in the October issue of the Newsletter. One thing is sure, it will be dirty. The scheme is designed to bolster the economy as the government gradually starts to lift pandemic-related restrictions. It will allow us to strive for more, in order to catch up with the western part of the EU", PiS leader stressed. The maximum cost of the programme is expected to amount to PLN ,6 bln ca.
EUR bln in total in ten years. The proposed tax changes are not budget neutral. Despite appearances, the international positioning of Poland was not improving. The relations the country had with Russia were still very bad, since the plane crash in Smolensk in Its relations with Germany, France and even Ukraine - despite the latter being Poland's traditional ally - were not getting better.
Relations with the European Union were also becoming increasingly complex. This guarantees him considerable influence - if not control - over the Polish state. What kind of policy does he promote? Clearly one in favor of the concentration of geographical and institutional powers within the state. The public media are entirely controlled by the ruling party, and have thus become tools for official propaganda.
Their audience is dropping considerably, to the benefit of new private media. The example of Mr Putin undoubtedly influences the PiS. There is more to J. This is an important reform, the goal of which is to eliminate the country's former administrative frameworks, be they post-communist or liberal.
This willingness is also present in sectors such as the army, education and culture, and aims to promote a nationalist and Catholic, devout and conservative Poland.
During a meeting with V. This discourse is not openly anti-European the European Union's structural funds provide substantial support to the country, and the EU remains very popular in Poland , but rather targets the liberal and open Europe as defended today in Brussels. Finally, this discourse focuses particularly on the Polish people as a collective, who must work together to survive in the face of external dangers and increasingly individualistic European values.
What are J. A great mystery hangs over this question. On one occasion, during a meeting with V. Yet the expression immediately disappeared from their jargon. For the time being, the European and parliamentary elections to be held in in Poland do not guarantee that the PiS will remain the ruling party in Poland.
Opposition forces and independent social movements are much stronger in Poland than in Hungary or other countries in the region. Institut Montaigne. FR EN. In the News. They made the European Commission initiate a rule of law procedure and open an Article 7 procedure in December , to withdraw Polish voting rights in the European Council if Poland does not amend its legislation.
Calls to correct unconstitutional rules remain unanswered except for the retirement age for Supreme Court judges. In the field of governance, there is some continuity via established structures for strategic planning and inter-ministerial coordination.
These expenditures are not sufficiently backed by revenues, since attempts to introduce new taxes were suspended. Law-making is often dominated by badly prepared bills that are passed hastily so that there is hardly any opportunity for other actors to have a say in them.
Another attempt to restrict access to abortion backfired on the government. Several large demonstrations were convened, which attracted a greater variety of people than the demonstrations against the new laws related to the media and the Constitutional Court.
Finally, the PiS government took a hard line on climate change and refugee resettlement, taking positions that are in opposition to EU policies. The year was the turning point in the Polish transition from communism to democracy. The communist leadership and the Solidarity-led opposition met at a roundtable to initiate political and economic reforms.
A coalition government headed by Solidarity activist Tadeusz Mazowiecki was formed. The breakup of both political camps gave rise to a multiplicity of political parties in the early s. Democratization was accompanied by an economic transformation from a centralized command economy to a market economy. It was initiated by then Finance Minister Leszek Balcerowicz, based on stabilization, privatization and price liberalization. While the stability-oriented path of economic policy was at first not contested, members of the political elite disagreed about the direction of political reforms.
One of the consequences was the very long process of drafting a new constitution. In , the Sejm passed an interim constitution, which was only substituted by a new constitution in This constitution, legitimized by a referendum, strengthened the role of the government in relation to the president and reconfirmed the principles of the rule of law, political pluralism and national sovereignty, in addition to territorial self-governance and local elections.
Since the early s, Poland has shown its ambition to join international organizations. After concluding an association agreement with the European Union in , Poland applied for EU membership in April and started accession negotiations in The following years were marked by intense efforts to implement the acquis into Polish law.
The accession treaty was signed in April , and Poland profits from EU structural funds and several Polish politicians have been very engaged in EU politics. In , Jerzy Buzek was elected president of the European Parliament. Later, when Poland held the presidency of the European Council for the first time, from July to December , it was considered very successful. While initially the main political cleavage was between former communists and the heirs of the Solidarity movement, the latter camp split in two and dominates political debates today.
Since , the nationalist-conservative PiS has competed with the liberal-conservative PO. Prime Minister Donald Tusk demonstrated a pro-European stance and more liberal politics than his predecessors. This coalition was reelected in and managed to successfully steer Poland through the euro crisis and its aftermath.
Quite unexpectedly, PiS and its candidate Andrzej Duda won the presidential elections in May , and the party also won the parliamentary elections in October For the first time in its democratic history, Poland is ruled by a single-party government. Following the Hungarian example, PiS started to support a redistributive economic policy, but most notably it contests pluralism and curtails mechanisms for checks and balances, especially in the judicial system, the media and the cultural sphere.
It is now confronted with strong opposition inside and outside the parliament, and criticism from the European Union. Because the government has continued to violate the rule of law, the country is now undergoing a procedure according to Article 7 of the Treaty of the European Union.
Poland could lose its voting rights in the European Council. Public order and security are fully guaranteed throughout the whole country. The nation-state is fully accepted by all citizens as legitimate. However, there are cleavages between political parties and citizens about the extent to which Poland should consider itself a member of a multi-level and supranational political order.
No political actors argue that certain groups of people or individuals should not be allowed to acquire Polish citizenship. The naturalization of non-citizens is not a contested political issue because Poland does not face intensive immigration. The reforms to the citizenship law, which were implemented in and facilitated naturalization, are still in place. According to Article In general, the southeast of the country is more religious than the northwest. The Catholic Church has a long history of protecting Poland against externally or internally imposed authorities; it is therefore not surprising that the church is used for political purposes.
The current PiS government, elected to office in October , seeks to legitimize certain political decisions using religious values. It appeals to conservative voters and promotes policies that enshrine Polish national and Catholic values. The bill then died in parliament over the summer. However, the efficiency and accessibility of health care have often been criticized. Decentralization was implemented in the past. Under the current PiS government, however, several reforms have led to the central executive having more control over local governments.
One example involves a change of the electoral law for regional elections. It states that mayors can now only have a maximum of two terms in office, and, since PiS is not so strong in larger cities, this was understood as an attempt to break the dominance of the opposition there.
The new law also reorganizes the structure of municipalities. Moreover, the January amended law on the civil service provided for more political appointments. Top positions in the civil service are now appointed by politicians rather than competitively elected, and the civil service as a whole has become more political. There have been no constraints on free and fair elections since The last parliamentary elections were held on October 25, An Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe OSCE Election Assessment Mission noted that the elections were competitive and pluralistic, conducted in an atmosphere of freedom to campaign and on the basis of equal and fair treatment of candidates.
In early , in advance of the local and regional elections in October and November of that year, legal changes were made which might have negative consequences. First, the option of postal votes, which had been introduced in , was abolished and is now only available to people with disabilities. The PKW will no longer be composed of judges — seven out of the nine commission members will be representatives of parliament.
The minister of the interior will be the one to propose the commissioners of the KBW — who conduct the management of elections on the ground. The minister will also nominate three possible candidates to head the KBW, with the PKW deciding which nominee will get the position.
Democratically elected political representatives have the effective power to govern. The military, business elites and other groups do not hold any veto power. For the first time since the regime change in , a single-party government was formed after the October parliamentary elections, and it does not have to fear any obstructions from the outside.
The Catholic Church has no formal political power, but priests do make political recommendations and have quite a close relationship with the party in government. Currently, there is instead the opposite debate — that the PiS government is becoming too dominant over the executive, legislative and judicial branches of power and that its democratic accountability is limited as it has tightened its grip on the court system.
The freedom of association and assembly is unrestricted and constitutionally guaranteed Articles 11, 12, 57 of the constitution. The government generally respects the right of individuals to form and join associations. Politically motivated limitations on gay pride parades were lifted in the past, and it was widely recognized that Poland respected association and assembly rights. Due to a legal reform in , it is not possible to hold two demonstrations at the same time, so the political preference for certain types of demonstrations over others might restrict the freedom of assembly.
In fact, this proposal was seen by the opposition as an attempt to limit freedom of assembly. The president did not sign the bill and sent it to the Constitutional Court for review. Freedom of expression is constitutionally guaranteed in Poland Article 54 of the constitution , and it is realized in practice. However, public TV and radio are under strong government control.
While all Polish governments have aimed to influence public media, several measures since have made it even more politicized. The National Broadcasting Council KRRiTV , which supervises public media and is supposed to guarantee freedom of speech, has been particularly used for political purposes. The current PiS government took several steps that demonstrated that it does not fully respect the freedom of expression.
First, it changed the law on the KRRiTV — since December 31, , its staff have been handpicked and appointed by the Treasury minister. However, the changes were abandoned after protests in Poland and abroad. While the reforms were still being enforced, several journalists from the public TVP and Radio Polskie were dismissed, while several others stepped down in protest. Despite these problems, there is access to more objective private media outlets and thus a plurality of opinions does exist.
Formally, there is a clear separation of powers, with mutual checks and balances guaranteed by the constitution. Governments are accountable to the Sejm, the first chamber of parliament, and members of parliament have the rights and resources to monitor and supervise the executive.
However, recent political developments have made checks and balances ineffective. Hence, there is limited institutional accountability in Poland. However, the opposition in parliament often claims its rights are not fully acknowledged in parliamentary procedures. The much more severe restrictions on the separation of powers takes place in the judicial system, which has come under nearly complete political control.
Hence, the institutional accountability of the government is limited, and judicial review is barely possible. Civil society organizes numerous demonstrations and protests against the dismantling of the democratic state by PiS, and the independent private media reports on it as well; however, due to the severe political interference, the European Commission opened an Article 7 procedure against Poland in December The independence of the judiciary is now impaired by political authorities.
The Constitutional Court had already lost its autonomy by the end of , while the ordinary courts and Supreme Court did because of further legislation passed in and For example, the government merged the offices of the attorney general and the minister of justice again.
The new merged positions also received widespread responsibilities regarding the internal organization of courts and the assignment of judges to cases. In addition, the government changed the composition and the rules of procedure within the Constitutional Tribunal see BTI Following a veto by President Duda, the law became even more draconian.
There were minor amendments after public protests and complaints by the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe and the Polish Ombudsman for Civil Rights. However, these did not change the substance of the law, and the European Commission then started an infringement procedure.
In its December verdict, the European Court of Justice ruled that the retirement clause was unconstitutional. These legislative changes not only impeded legal certainty in Poland — they also caused the European Commission to trigger a rule of law procedure against Poland and later an Article 7 procedure in December Politicians who misuse their public mandate or office can be accused at the State Tribunal.
Members of parliament have been obliged to publish their income on the website of the parliament Sejm since November They are also required to disclose any benefits that they or their spouses receive in a public register of interests kept by the speakers of the Sejm and Senate.
The CBA had a record of being misused politically during the first PiS-led government between and In , new efforts to fight corruption were launched with a new strategy lasting until Since PiS resumed power in , its focus has been less on corruption and more on the exertion of political control over the judiciary and other institutions and politicians who are critical of the government.
CBA staff have been replaced. PiS supporters have also been given management positions in other parts of the state apparatus. A new law on public sector transparency, valid from March , has received a lot of criticism.
If centrist rule continued, then I think radical movements would have been stronger in Poland. But any stronger association with the far-right could turn those voters away, analysts say.
ONR and other far-right Polish groups such as Mlodziez Wszechpolska refuse to release membership figures but analysts say acceptance of xenophobic slogans as well as violence against Muslims is on the rise. In a November survey by CBOS, a pollster overseen by the government, 95 percent of Poles said they did not know anyone from a far-right group. However, more than one in three said they supported far-right activities. Poland, like Hungary, has refused to take in any of its European Union quota of refugees from Syria and elsewhere on the grounds that Muslim immigrants are a threat to national security and stability.
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