The lower house of Poland’s parliament last night voted to ratify implementation of the European Union’s €750 billion coronavirus recovery fund, averting a potential crisis for the country and the bloc after a rebellion in the ruling coalition left the government needing opposition support.
Eurosceptic junior coalition partner United Poland (Solidarna Polska) joined the far right Confederation (Konfederacja) in opposing the fund, which they warned would accelerate the federalisation of Europe and harm Poland’s national interests.
That left the main ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), and its other coalition partner, Agreement (Porozumienie) short of a parliamentary majority. They had therefore courted The Left (Lewica), the second largest opposition group, by agreeing to add its six demands to the implementation of the fund.
The Left, as promised, voted in favour of the fund. It was also joined by most MPs from two smaller opposition groups: the agrarian Polish People’s Party (PSL) and centrist Poland 2050 (Polska 2050).
The main opposition force, Civic Coalition (KO), even though it is strongly pro-EU, had sought to unite the opposition in opposing the fund. It argued that PiS could not be trusted to spend the money fairly and that opposing ratification would help bring down the government and force early elections.
That plan failed, leaving most of KO’s MPs as the only ones to abstain during the vote in the lower-house Sejm, which took place after 8 p.m. last night following a day of heated discussion and angry exchanges. In the end, 290 MPs voted in favour, 33 against were against, and 133 abstained.
🟢Za ustawą głosowało 290 posłów
🔴Przeciw było 33 posłów
🟡Wstrzymało się od głosu 133 posłów#FunduszOdbudowy #KrajowyPlanOdbudowy pic.twitter.com/IFOKh8aSq9— Sejm RP🇵🇱 (@KancelariaSejmu) May 4, 2021
Had parliament voted against ratification, it could have delayed or even prevented the arrival of €57 billion in subsidies and loans from the EU for Poland. It also might have forced the entire fund to be renegotiated, as it requires the unanimous approval of all member states.
The legislation now passes to the Senate, where the opposition have a majority. However, even if the upper chamber rejects the legislation, it can be overruled by a simple majority in the more powerful Sejm.
While the crisis over the fund has been averted, the splits in both the ruling camp and the opposition could also have longer-term ramifications. With relations in the governing coalition increasingly strained, PiS could seek early elections. KO’s hopes of creating a broad opposition coalition to oust PiS are now in tatters.
“Thank you to all those who rose above their party calculations,” said PiS Prime MInister Mateusz Morawiecki after the vote. “There were many emotions in the Sejm today, but we saw that there were also caucuses and MPs who voted for Poland.”
Among them was one rebel from KO, Franciszek Sterczewski, who voted in favour of the fund. “Will PiS be able to boast about various investments? Of course,” he explained. “Does this mean I should be against it? No, because we are talking about a giant injection of money that will improve the lives of Poles.”
However, three PiS MPs joined United Poland in rebelling against the government line and voting against the fund. One of them, Anna Maria Siarkowska, said that she had done so because she is “against the concept of the EU as a superstate”.
Main image credit: Kancelaria Sejmu/Łukasz Błasikiewicz (under CC BY 2.0)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
