Solidary Poland opposes some milestones of national recovery plan
Zbigniew Ziobro, leader of Solidary Poland, has said his party will not back some milestones set by the European Commission in order to release EU post-pandemic funds under Poland's recovery plan.
On June 1, the European Commission approved the milestone issues enumerated in the country's National Recovery Plan (KPO) but said that Warsaw must show that they have been met before any payment of post-pandemic recovery funds can be made.
On Saturday, the leadership of Solidary Poland, a small ally to Poland's ruling party Law and Justice (PiS), held a meeting on the KPO.
Following the meeting, Ziobro told a press conference that the leadership of his party had adopted a resolution on the discussed matter.
"The final content of the so-called milestones was not the subject of any governmental or political arrangements with Solidary Poland," he said.
"In this sense, we do not feel obliged to implement all the provisions contained therein without prior evaluation, and we will only evaluate them in terms of the interest of Poland and Poles," Ziobro added.
"Solidarity Poland is not able to support all the milestones, for example taxing the use of internal combustion cars," he added.
Ziobro said that some of the milestones include points that are "neutral", but there are some that "raise fundamental doubts", including the taxation of the use of combustion cars.
"This is the way to implement the latest insane demand of the European Parliament to eliminate these cars from the public space of the EU, including Poland," he said.
Solidary Poland is unable to support this point as it would hit the basic economic interests of millions of Polish families, he added.
"We will not agree to this type of ideological madness that would hit the pockets of Poles," Ziobro said.
But Piotr Mueller, the government spokesman, said later on Saturday that "the KPO does not include any detrimental provisions with respect to taxes and levies."
He went on to say that such provisions "are regulated at the level of laws and can be adapted and compensated for accordingly."
"We have already refuted groundless accusations from the opposition in this respect," Mueller said. "Perhaps this is the reason why some representatives of Solidary Poland have misunderstood certain KPO provisions."
