Polish parliament approves making Christmas Eve day off work

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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.

The lower house of parliament, the Sejm, has approved a bill making Christmas Eve a day off work in Poland, with the changes set to take effect from next year.

The legislation would also allow shops to open on three Sundays leading up to Christmas. At present, trading is only allowed on two Sundays in December.

The bill will now proceed to the upper house of parliament, the Senate, which can suggest amendments but not block the legislation, before being passed to President Andrzej Duda.

However, Duda – an ally of the former ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party that first introduced Sunday trading restrictions – opposes the move to increase the number of shopping Sundays in December and could veto the bill for that reason, according to media reports.

Poland’s main Christmas celebration takes place not on the 25 December but on the previous evening, known as Wigilia, when people gather for the traditional Christmas meal and open presents. However, while 25 and 26 December are officially days off work in Poland, Christmas Eve is not.

The bill, tabled by The Left (Lewica) – the smallest group in the ruling coalition, which also includes Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition (KO) and the centre-right Third Way (Trzecia Droga) – initially proposed the introduction of a work-free Christmas Eve in 2024.

However, in the end, MPs adopted an amendment proposed by KO, the largest group in the ruling coalition, postponing the law’s entry into force to February 2025, meaning that the first day off work on Christmas Eve will be next year.

The bill passed with 403 MPs from almost all political groups voting in favour. Ten, mainly from the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja), were against, and 12, mainly from PiS and the left-wing Together (Razem), abstained.

A separate proposal by Together (Razem), which recently cut ties with the ruling coalition, to limit the trading Sundays before Christmas to two instead of three, was rejected, despite receiving support from PiS, which is now the main opposition party.

After the main bill was passed, The Left’s Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, who is minister for family, labour and social policy, criticised the introduction of an additional trading Sunday, saying that trade workers should not be “punished with an additional day of work”.

“Holidays are about giving, not about taking something from someone,” she added, quoted by broadcaster TVN.

Later, The Left’s Krzysztof Gawkowski, who is deputy prime minister, said that his group would try to make amendments in the Senate to remove the additional trading Sunday and to make Christmas Eve a day off work already this year.

Meanwhile, although President Duda has previously expressed support for making Christmas Eve a day off work, he is opposed to adding an additional trading Sunday in December, reports Polskie Radio.

“This is a disadvantageous solution for trade workers. I think the president will not agree to it. The Senate must amend the law passed by the Sejm. Otherwise, MPs will [have to] work on it from scratch,” a source at the president’s office told the broadcaster anonymously.

The Sunday trading ban was first introduced in 2018 by the then-ruling PiS government, following a campaign spearheaded by the Solidarity trade union and the Catholic church. The restrictions were gradually phased in, and since 2020 trade has only been allowed on seven designated Sundays a year.

These exceptions include the two Sundays preceding Christmas, the Sunday immediately before Easter, and the last Sundays of January, April, June and August. If passed into law, the latest legislation will allow an additional trading Sunday in December.

However, some elements of the ruling coalition that replaced PiS last December have sought to end or soften this ban. In March, Poland 2050 tabled a bill that would allow shops to open on two Sundays each month. The draft, however, has not yet been adopted and is still being discussed in the Sejm.

Trade unions, including Solidarity and the All-Poland Alliance of Trade Unions (OPZZ), welcomed the move to make Christmas Eve a day off work.

Employers, however, voiced concerns over the economic impact and lack of consultation. Finance minister Andrzej Domański, meanwhile, estimated that the measure could cost the economy around 4 billion zloty (€927.5 million) and the state budget around 2.3 billion zloty.

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: StockSnap / Pixabay

Alicja Ptak

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