Poland to move ahead with major deregulation package after presidential vote, says Tusk

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland will move forward with a sweeping deregulation package, intended to simplify laws and cut red tape, immediately after the upcoming presidential election, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday.

He revealed that around 120 bills will be developed in the first phase, describing it as the most significant overhaul of Poland’s legal and administrative system since joining the European Union in 2004.

Many of the proposals were prepared by a team led by billionaire businessman and InPost CEO Rafał Brzoska, who Tusk asked earlier this year to help the government. However, one of Tusk’s coalition partners, The Left (Lewica), has indicated that it will not support all the proposed measures.

Brzoska’s proposals include a presumption of taxpayers’ innocence, a mandatory six-month vacatio legis (transition period) for new laws to allow businesses time to adapt, streamlined lease agreement procedures, and digitalised employment contracts, according to the news service Infor.

Tusk said that draft legislation relating to the package would be processed at the first sitting of parliament after the presidential election, the final round of which takes place on 1 June.

The prime minister expressed hope that “emotions will be lower” after the end of the election campaign, making it more likely that the package will “not become the subject of political struggle” and can receive support “from various parties”.

“There has not been such a massive systemic change…since Poland’s accession to the EU,” said Tusk, who also revealed he has also asked development minister Krzysztof Paszyk to incorporate proposals from opposition parties into the package.

However, the prime minister could face resistance from one of his own junior coalition partners, The Left, which reportedly has concerns over the impact of some of the proposals on workers’ rights, environmental safeguards and consumer protection.

Last week, financial news outlet Money.pl reported that The Left intended to oppose roughly one-third of the proposals. This was partially confirmed by the group’s co-leader, Włodzimierz Czarzasty, who also serves as deputy speaker of the Sejm, the more powerful lower house of parliament.

“We will certainly not agree to all provisions that will harm workers in any form,” Czarzasty told broadcaster TVN. “There are 16 million employees and only 2.5 million employers [in Poland], including small ones.”

Brzoska says that his team – established in February and made up of experts from business, politics, law and healthcare – received over 15,000 public proposals for cutting red tape, mostly from individual citizens rather than businesses.

Out of 259 proposals selected by the team and published on a dedicated website – where members of the public can vote for their favourites – 197 have already been reviewed, with over 61% approved for implementation, he said.

Brzoska urged lawmakers working on the project to consider a “one in, two out” principle, requiring any new regulation to be accompanied by the repeal of two existing ones.

“This would be the best proof that we all want to reduce, not duplicate, the number of typed pages of each law,” Money.pl reported Brzoska as saying.

Tusk responded to Brzoski’s challenge by saying that his government will try “to surprise on the upside – the ratio will be better than the ‘one in, two out’ rule.”

In an interview with state news agency PAP last week, Brzoska announced he would return full time to his duties at InPost at the end of May, after completing 100 days of unpaid work on the deregulation initiative.

Meanwhile, also on Thursday, a few hours after Tusk’s speech, the Sejm passed a separate deregulation bill prepared by the development ministry. The bill, which includes some measures also suggested by Brzoska’s team, was adopted with near-unanimous support.

A total of 411 MPs voted in favour of the legislation, five were against, and no one abstained. The upper-house Senate will now take up the bill, which also requires the signature of President Andrzej Duda to become law.

The bill includes the introduction of a six-month vacatio legis, a reduction in the duration of inspections of micro companies from 12 to six days, an obligation to deliver a preliminary list of information and documents to the business owner before the commencement of the inspection, and the possibility to object to the inspection activities.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: KPRM/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.