FT: PiS to avoid confrontation with UE in coming months

The British Financial Times quotes Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska from the London Center for European Reform (CER), according to whom the new Polish government will in the coming months try to avoid clashes with the European Union as it strives to win the political center ahead of the 2020 presidential elections.

According to the FT, the Law and Justice (PiS) party won the majority in the Sejm because it seduced Poles with its vision of further social spending and managed to mobilize the “deeply conservative electorate through attacks on the rights of LGBT people.” The newspaper writes that PiS presented the LGBT community as an alien ideology that threatens the traditional Polish family. The daily also reminds that the party promised voters a big increase in the minimum wage. Over the next four years it is expected to increase by 78%, the FT calculated.

“The party also indicated that it intends to continue its reforms of the judiciary and outlined the prospect for regulating the media, as well as other professions such as lawyers. The proposal raised journalists’ concerns,” we read.

Gostyńska-Jakubowska said that such a policy may lead to further clashes between Warsaw and Brussels. She added, however, that she does not expect a major confrontation with the UE before the presidential elections in spring 2020.

(Business Insider)