‘No deal’ as Polish opposition sticks to parliament protest
WARSAW: Poland’s parliament was paralysed Wednesday as liberal opposition MPs refused to end an unprecedented protest against what they say are antidemocratic actions by the government.
Civic Platform ( PO) legislators have been occupying parliament since mid-December after the governing Law and Justice ( PiS) party announced plans to restrict journalists’ right to cover legislative proceedings, a position from which the PiS has since retreated.
The opposition then harnessed the protest to this year’s budget vote.
It wants a re-run of the vote which it says was illegal as the governing party passed it in December in another part of the building because the opposition had taken over the main chamber.
But the governing party insists the vote was legal and deepening the standoff, the PiS- controlled Senate passed the disputed 2017 budget on Wednesday.
PO leader Grzegorz Schetyna called the Senate’s move illegal and vowed his party’s MP would continue to occupy parliament.
Having previously slammed the opposition sit-in as “an attempted coup”, powerful PiS party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski insisted on Wednesday there would be no turning back on the budget.
“We’ve passed the budget and I hope that soon, after the president signs it, it will be published in the journal of laws,” he told reporters gathered in parliament.
The opposition also argues on procedural grounds that the last session of parliament held in December is not – as the PiS says – formally over, but merely ‘interrupted’. — AFP