Today’s news round up in Poland
Start your day with a summary of today’s top stories from Poland’s leading news sites.
Wyborcza.pl – The biggest private daily carried a story that changes to the election law proposed by the ruling party Law and Justice (PiS) may limit the possibility to vote for Poles living abroad. In the 2015 general election, 175,000 Poles voted abroad, and four years later that number grew to 314,000. In the 2020 presidential election, 400,000 Poles voted outside the country. Until 2019, PiS had received the majority of votes from Poles living abroad but recently the opposition was gaining more backing. According to the proposed changes, Poles living abroad will have to present their Polish ID instead of a passport in order to vote. Opposition MPs said that such a change would make voting abroad more difficult because many Poles did not have a valid Polish ID.
rp.pl – The daily published a poll done by the IBRIS pollster according to which almost one out of two Poles did not believe that a compromise on amending the law on the Supreme Court between the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) and its smaller coalition partner, Solidary Poland, was possible. Despite several meetings with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Solidary Poland does not support the proposed changes to the Supreme Court regulations. Poland is due to receive EUR 23.9 billion in grants and EUR 11.5 billion in inexpensive loans from the EU's post-pandemic Recovery and Resilience Facility. In a bid to get access to the funds, PiS MPs have tabled a bill in the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, amending the law on the Supreme Court with a view to satisfying one of the rule-of-law "milestones" set by the European Commission. Proposed changes will be discussed during this week's sitting of the Sejm.
TVPInfo.pl – The state-owned TV news channel carried a story that according to Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, victims have the right to defend themselves. On Monday, two thugs carrying a weapon attempted to rob a grocery store in Kobylka (suburb of Warsaw). The store owner attacked them with a knife and injured one of the robbers who died due to his injuries. On Tuesday evening, Ziobro wrote on Twitter that gangsters should fear the consequences of their actions. The store owner is being treated by the prosecutors as a victim.
RMF24.pl – The biggest private radio broadcaster carried a story that Poles believe that inflation is higher than official data indicates. Prices of consumer goods and services (Consumer Price Index, CPI) increased by 16.6 percent year on year in December 2022, the Central Statistical Office (GUS) recently reported. A poll done by United Surveys shows that according to a majority of Poles, prices increased by 43 percent. Almost half of Poles (47 percent) say that in 2023 inflation will be higher than it was in 2022.
