The holiday season is in full swing, so I decided to take advantage of the situation and renew my journalist’s pass at the Sejm, Poland’s parliament. It was 8 am on a weekday in mid-August. The porter was reading the tabloids, looking at photographs of left-wing deputies in the tropics and of Law and Justice (PiS) deputies standing by the cross outside the Presidential Palace.

In the meantime, the head of Civic Platform’s (PO) parliamentary club was in a meeting with his party colleagues. This year they had short holidays – the PM is apparently working his party hard.

All power in PO’s hands

There is a year left before the next parliamentary elections, and the ruling Civic Platform no longer has any excuses not to introduce reforms. PO candidate Bronisław Komorowski now holds the office of president. His predecessor, the late Lech Kaczyński, vetoed a number of parliamentary acts and blocked the legislative process, something the new president is unlikely to do.

PO chief Grzegorz Schetyna is running parliament as speaker of the Sejm and has arranged the parliamentary calendar in such a way that acts vetoed by Kaczyński will quickly pass through with some minor redrafting and be signed by the president. And the leader of the PO parliamentary club Tomasz Tomczykiewicz (a backbench politician, but a good organizer) has ordered the deputies to work at a fast pace in order for parliamentary commissions to present new acts ready to be voted upon.

Legislative calendar

The government’s legislative schedule for the autumn will focus on piecemeal reform.

First of all, acts commercializing the health service and reforming medical care will be fast-tracked through the legislature. The autumn offensive will include the issue of infrastructure development (including flood protection) as well as social questions which include, in addition to the discounts for students promised by Bronisław Komorowski during his presidential campaign, the problem of nurseries, care of children and foster families.

There will be changes in finances since, in addition to next year’s budget, the government will present the Sejm with a consolidation package for the public finances together with an expenditure rule, another way of managing agencies and funds and probably an update to the Labor Code so it will be easier, to use a euphemism, to “rationalize employment.”

A package of acts will deal with the de-bureaucratization of the state. This will make it possible to deal electronically with the majority of administrative matters and will simplify procedures as well as reduce the number of administrative obstacles for both entrepreneurs and citizens.

What won’t they touch?

The PO government, in searching for savings, is ready to reform the pensions of the uniformed services and limit child benefits for the wealthiest. However it is certain that it will not touch two behemoth issues before the parliamentary elections – the Agricultural Social Insurance Fund, Poland’s social security system for farmers, and a tax on the Church.

The Polish People’s Party (PSL), PO’s coalition partner, would never agree to the former under any circumstances. If it gave way on this it would lose its entire, already dwindling electorate and would never see the inside of the Sejm again. This is a shame because insurance for farmers has already cost the state billions of złoty.

And Donald Tusk’s government will almost certainly avoid church taxation in a pre-election year. The church will not pay property tax, will not maintain accounting records, will not give receipts for donations placed on the collection plate or given in other ways, and the clergy will not have to complete tax returns and inform the tax authorities about their incomes.

This despite the fact that taxation of the Church could – according to calculations made by left-wing politicians – bring an additional zł.5 billion into the budget. The influence of the Church on voters in Poland is simply too strong to be ignored.

Therefore the minister of finance will look to make the smallest possible savings in the budget and in our pockets. The government will decide upon bigger changes only after next year’s elections.

Joanna Wóycicka is the former head of the foreign sections of the Życie Warszawy and Życie newspapers and the former head of the foreign department at the Polish
Press Agency (PAP).j.woycicka@hotmail.com