2023-12-23 18:35 update: 2023-12-27, 12:31
Andrzej Duda. Photo PAP/Leszek Szymański
Andrzej Duda, the Polish president, has vetoed the budget-related bill for 2024, criticising the changes the new coalition government was making to the public media.
"I have decided to veto the budget-related bill for 2024, which included PLN 3 billion (EUR 690 million) for public media," Duda wrote on the X platform on Saturday afternoon. "There may be no consent to it given the blatant violation of the Constitution and the principles of a democratic state of law."
The president was referring to the swift changes that the new coalition government made to public media management on Wednesday, which caused outrage in the ex-ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), of which Duda is considered an ally.
PiS says the management of public media companies can only be dismissed by the National Media Council, a body set up when PiS was in power. The new ruling coalition accuses PiS of manning the body with party loyalists and turning public media into PiS propaganda outlets.
"An attempt to finance public media through a budget related law (by the parliamentary majority) is in the current situation unacceptable," Duda continued.
The budget-related law is an important piece of legislation for the Donald Tusk government as it fulfils a number of the new ruling coalition's election promises, including a 30-percent pay rise for teachers and a 20-percent wage increase for public sector employees.
However, Duda said he will send to parliament his own budget-related bill that will include the raises.
He wrote that "immediately after Christmas I will file with the Sejm (lower house of parliament - PAP) my own draft related to the raises for teachers and other expenditures planned in the budget-related law."
Duda also appealed to the Sejm and Senate speakers to urgently call the sessions of both parliamentary houses to process and adopt his draft by the end of this year.
The veto is an important hurdle for Poland's new pro-EU government which is under tremendous time pressure to pass the budget bills for 2024 given the fact that it took office as late as December 13, nearly two months after the elections. This was partly because of Duda giving the first chance at forming the government to PiS's Mateusz Morawiecki, whose attempts were doomed to fail from the very start as he lacked the necessary majority in parliament and no other party wanted to join his proposed coalition. (PAP)
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