“The government of Donald Tusk is breaking records when it comes to the collapse of public finances,” Mariusz Błaszczak, head of the parliamentary caucus of the Law and Justice party (PiS), said at a Tuesday press conference of PiS MPs. Opposition politicians sharply criticized the budget planned for next year and pointed out how it could be fixed.
Błaszczak recalled the planned cuts in healthcare revealed yesterday. The issue concerns allocating 10.3 billion złoty less for patients. Access to specialists will be reduced, the number of funded surgeries will decrease, reimbursement of medicines for seniors will be limited, and county hospitals will receive less funding.
“This is one big scandal, showing that Poland is being governed by incompetent people who additionally deny the commitments they made in 2023. I will remind you that [Bartosz] Arłukowicz and others from Civic Platform pledged that limits on precisely this type of medical service would be abolished. Not only have they not been abolished, but the number of limits has actually been increased,”
he said.
“The time for subsidies to Ukraine is over”
Another issue raised by the former deputy prime minister was defense. He pointed out that the Armed Forces Support Fund would again not be used this year. “The December 13 coalition government boasts that it will obtain loans from the European Union from the SAFE fund,” he said. He noted, however, that the applications submitted by the government had been classified, which in his view “violates the standards that should apply in a democratic state, as it is the Polish taxpayer who will repay the loan taken out for unknown contracts.”
“The coordinator of these contracts, Minister Sobkowiak, claims that nearly 10 billion złoty will be allocated to Ukraine, meaning that the Polish taxpayer will be repaying a loan taken out by the Polish government, while the money will go to Ukraine. I want to state clearly that the time for subsidies to Ukraine is over. Ukraine needed support when it was attacked by Russia, at that crucial moment concerning its independence […] But that time has passed,”
he said.
“There is a shortage of everything”
MP Zbigniew Kuźmiuk pointed to three characteristic features of the planned budget. First, “for every budget expenditure, one-third of the money must be borrowed.” Second, the deficit amounts to nearly 50 percent of budget revenues, which, in his view, shows that in the coming years, it will not be possible to assemble a workable budget. The third aspect is the rapid increase in deficits, which will result in growing public debt.
“The total deficit over three years – 2024, 2025, and 2026 – is 770 billion złoty, and the debt – since this coalition also borrows outside the budget – amounts to 1 trillion 100 billion złoty, 17 percentage points of GDP. Let me remind you […] that in the years 2015-2023, Law and Justice governments reduced public debt relative to GDP by two percentage points, from just over 51 to 49, despite so-called external shocks […], while this government in just three years will increase public debt by 17 percentage points. This is the highest growth of public debt in Europe,”
he said.
Amendments and a motion to reject the budget
Kuźmiuk recalled that PiS had submitted amendments to the budget concerning additional funds for healthcare, wages in the public sector, the scientific sector, and support for combating unemployment – all of which were rejected at first reading. “We will submit them again at second reading, hoping that at least, given the dramatic situation in healthcare, the ruling coalition will choose not drastic cuts but rather an increase of financial resources in this area.”
He noted that the PiS caucus would also submit a motion to reject the budget bill, because – as he stated – “the coalition has chosen to impose spending cuts on institutions it dislikes.” He listed the Supreme Court, the National Broadcasting Council, and the Institute of National Remembrance.
He also pointed out that the situation is different with the Constitutional Tribunal. In his view, supporting the tribunal with the amount it requested proves that next year the government “is preparing a takeover” and is seeking to bring it under its control.