Poland – Constitutional changes

As reported in a previous post, the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, recently suggested that there should be a set of constitutional reforms that would reduce the president’s powers and abolish direct election.

Anyway, Poland’s Voice reports that the ruling Civic Platform (PO) party, of which Tusk is a member, will be proposing a watered-down set of reforms in January. According to the report, “The Civic Platform will likely propose weakening the president’s powers to veto legislation, but will hold back from abolishing direct presidential elections, according to press reports.” One reason why the proposed reform has been weakened is because constitutional reform requires a two-thirds majority.

According to another report that quotes the head of the PO’s parliamentary group, Grzegorz Schetyna, the reform will weaken the president’s veto power and it will also reduce the number of deputies and senators, ideally by between 20% and 50%.

If passed, the reforms will come into operation after the 2010 presidential election.

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