President Duda wants to block Tusk budget with veto
The dispute over the deposed leadership of the public media in Poland is escalating: Duda announces a veto against the new Tusk government's budget law. The Polish president is the last high-ranking representative of the deposed right-wing PiS cadres.
Polish President Andrzej Duda has announced his veto against the budget law of the new pro-European government. He intends to block the three billion zloty (691 million euros) in funding for the public media provided for in the budget, Duda explained on the online service X this evening.
The president, who is allied with the previous right-wing nationalist government, described the financial aid as a "blatant violation of the constitution and the principles of the democratic constitutional state". "The public media must first be reliably and lawfully restored," explained Duda.
According to the president, he intends to introduce his own bill in the coming days, which also provides for other budget expenditure such as salary increases for teachers. He asked for parliament to reconvene in order to pass the proposals before the end of the year. With his veto announcement, Duda is further exacerbating his conflict with the new government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Criticism of Duda from the ranks of the PiS
On Wednesday, the Ministry of Culture dismissed the entire management of public television, radio and the PAP news agency. For years, these were regarded as mouthpieces of the PiS government. The ministry referred to a previously passed parliamentary resolution to restore "the impartiality and reliability of the public media".
Some representatives of the PiS party had criticized Duda's initial reaction to the measure as inadequate. On Wednesday, the latter initially called on Tusk to "respect the Polish legal order"; a parliamentary resolution has "no legal force". Tusk replied that the actions were aimed at "restoring the legal order and general decency in public life."
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Source: www.ntv.de
