New parliament serious about acting gov't mortgage aid bill says speaker
The outgoing ruling party's draft law on extending a mortgage moratorium to 2024 to help borrowers struggling with high interest rates will be taken seriously by the new Sejm, the lower house of parliament, Sejm Speaker Szymon Holownia has said.
In 2022, parliament passed a law allowing borrowers to temporarily suspend mortgage repayments for four months in 2022 and another four months in 2023.
The law was introduced to help borrowers cope with the financial burden caused by interest rates that have increased to 6.75 percent, and an inflation rate that hit a 26-year-high in February 2023 of 18.4 percent.
"I have sent this bill for analysis... Once it is back from the consultations, we will make further decisions, however we take this project seriously," Holownia, the newly-elected head of the lower house, told press on Tuesday.
The Sejm will also rush forward with processing another government bill, one concerning Sunday trading, Holownia also said.
The bill, which concerns Sundays that will be open for trade in December, will be processed quickly, with the first reading possible next Tuesday, November 28.
"A bill about Sunday trading, about a free December 24 and moving this Sunday (Dec 24 - PAP) trading to one of the earlier Sundays - this is the bill we will proceed with. It is urgent," Holownia said.
"We will, of course, give it a print number after analyses and it will go into normal parliamentary circulation with a caveat that it has to be done fairly quickly... We could even hold its first reading next week on Tuesday. If we could get it through quickly, we would make it in time," Holownia concluded.
