WARSAW — Most countries are capable of handling only one or two political emergencies at a time — Poland has at least five, and that’s not counting coronavirus.
As with the rest of the world, COVID still looms. The daily infection rate is low, but only 46.5 percent of the population is fully vaccinated and resistance is growing — storing up problems for the fall.
But that’s further into the future. The next days and weeks will be consumed with a series of political crunches that will challenge the ruling nationalist United Right coalition — led by the Law and Justice (PiS) party. If it trips up, Poland could see a snap election instead of the scheduled parliamentary ballot in 2023.
The outcome will also shape Poland’s increasingly strained relations with the European Union and the United States.
1. Coalition tensions over a tax package
The government plans to win an unprecedented third term in office in 2023 thanks to what it’s calling the “Polish Deal” — an economic program that cuts taxes for lower and middle-income earners, supports homebuyers, boosts health care spending and increases benefits for pensioners and families with children. It will largely be paid for by a steep increase in health care taxes on the self-employed. Municipalities are also raising the alarm that they’ll see a dramatic drop in funding.
The government is underlining that a large majority of Poles will see gains from the package, but the opposition and employers federations have had some success at painting the measure as a tax hike. A survey out Thursday found almost 55 percent of Poles feel it will leave them worse off.
It’s leading to significant tensions within the ruling coalition — made up of PiS and two smaller allies, the hard-right United Poland and the more liberal Accord. The government only has a one-seat majority in the 460-member parliament.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki fired Deputy Development Minister Anna Kornecka of Accord after she criticized the Polish Deal. “Entering the government, I had one goal: to defend Polish entrepreneurs. There is no acceptance of dramatic increases of payments and taxes for them,” Kornecka tweeted after being dismissed.
“Some people, including those in Accord, are putting forward untrue information about the Polish Deal,” fired back government spokesman Piotr Müller on Polsat television.
Accord leader Jarosław Gowin is holding a party meeting on Saturday. “We’ll decide whether, and on what conditions, we are prepared to continue cooperation in the United Right coalition,” he told the TVN24 news channel.
2. Awkward pay raise for MPs
President Andrzej Duda approved a 60 percent pay hike for legislators, which will go into effect on September 1. It’s a reversal of a 2018 decision by PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński to cut MPs’ pay by 20 percent after a controversy over big financial rewards being paid to parliamentarians.
The pay hike is hugely unpopular among Poles; an opinion poll out this week found that 84 percent are opposed.
That’s provided ammunition for the opposition. Donald Tusk, who returned to Warsaw from Brussels — where he had been the head of the European People’s Party grouping — to take over Civic Platform, the leading opposition party, rammed through a decision for his MPs to file a bill to rescind the pay hike.
“Everyone wants to earn more, but it’s obvious that from the point of view of every citizen, this isn’t a crucial need,” Tusk told a rally earlier this week.
Tusk, Polish prime minister from 2007-2014 and a two-term president of the European Council, has revived the fortunes of Civic Platform. The party has jumped from third to second place in opinion polls and is now at 27 percent compared to 36 percent for PiS.
3. A troublesome watchdog
The ruling coalition’s efforts to stay ahead in opinion polls aren’t being helped by Marian Banaś, the head of the Supreme Audit Office (NIK). A former PiS loyalist who broke with the party, he’s unleashed his inspectors against Zbigniew Ziobro, the powerful justice minister and chief prosecutor who is also leader of the United Poland party that’s part of the ruling coalition.
This week, the NIK completed a report alleging deep problems in a special fund administered by the justice ministry that’s supposed to be used to help crime victims but was instead used for a variety of other purposes. In its report, the watchdog said Ziobro did not react to “systemic problems” at the fund “as well as conflicts of interests and corruption-generating mechanisms.”
Banaś notified Morawiecki, Kaczyński and the head of Central Anti-corruption Agency (CBA) about the report, which will be presented next month.
Ziobro rejected the accusations, and the justice ministry accused NIK of using its probe for “internal games and to defend the individual interests” of Banaś and his son. The CBA is investigating Banaś’s son, which the NIK chief says is a political attack aimed at him, while the prosecutor’s office, run by Ziobro, accuses Banaś of filing incorrect statements of his assets.
That scrap isn’t helping Ziobro, who is engaged in a behind-the-scenes power struggle with Morawiecki.
4. Problems with Brussels
Those internal wrangles are happening as Warsaw’s long-running spats with the EU come to a head.
The country’s radical revamp of the judicial system — a project of Kaczyński and Ziobro — has led to accusations that it’s meant to bring judges under tighter political control.
The Court of Justice of the EU ruled last month that a new disciplinary body within the Supreme Court violates EU law and ordered it to stop ruling. Didier Reynders, the justice commissioner, has warned Poland could face fines if it doesn’t fall into line. On Thursday, the head of the Polish Supreme Court partially froze the disciplinary chamber.
The Polish Constitutional Tribunal also ruled last month that the EU court has no authority to impose measures affecting the Polish judiciary.
The dispute will get even more intense at the end of the month, when the Polish tribunal hears a request filed by Morawiecki to determine whether EU law has primacy over Polish law.
That’s leading to worries from Brussels that Poland may undermine the bloc’s legal order.
Tusk is using those concerns to fuel his efforts to revive Civic Platform, saying he’s campaigning to prevent a Polexit from the EU, something Morawiecki insists the government has no intention of allowing, calling it “political fantasy.”
But the tensions with Brussels are having consequences. Poland (along with Hungary) still hasn’t received the European Commission’s approval for its pandemic recovery program — needed if Warsaw is to tap into €24 billion in Next Generation EU grants and €34 billion in loans. That money is crucial to the government’s spending programs that are part of its pre-election campaign.
5. Washington lays down the law
Warsaw is also at loggerheads with Washington, the country’s crucial NATO ally.
The fight is over TVN, a popular TV channel owned by Discovery of the U.S. The channel’s independent news arm infuriates the government, which has long tried to bring the media under tighter control.
TVN’s broadcast license is up for renewal next month, and parliament is working on a bill that would not grant licenses to companies majority-owned by entities from outside the European Economic Area. TVN is formally owned by a Dutch-registered company that’s in turn owned by Discovery, so it meets Polish rules at present, but would not if the legislation were passed.
Morawiecki has said the new law is needed to stop a Polish broadcaster from being bought by “an entity from Russia, China or an Arab country.” Accord leader Gowin wants to expand the definition to countries belonging to the 38-member Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which includes the U.S. The White House warns that President Joe Biden is keeping a close eye on the law.
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators issued their own warning on Wednesday.
“Any decision to implement these laws could have negative implications for defense, business and trade relations,” said their joint statement. “We urge the Polish government to pause before acting on any measure that would impact our longstanding relationship.”
PiS plans to decide Tuesday whether to power ahead with the legislation or to change course.