Nawrocki vetoed 41 laws and sent two more to the Constitutional Tribunal for preventive review during his first year as president, making him the most frequent user of the presidential veto since 1989. Aleksander Kwaśniewski vetoed 35 laws over two full terms, Lech Wałęsa 27, and Andrzej Duda 19 over a decade in office, according to money.pl.
Most of the blocked legislation - 24 of the 41 bills - had no budgetary impact, the portal said. But several targeted measures would have raised significant state revenue: a windfall tax on fuel companies' extraordinary profits, worth an estimated PLN 3.8 billion (EUR 0.88 billion), was referred to the Constitutional Tribunal rather than signed; higher alcohol excise duties, worth PLN 1.8 billion (EUR 0.42 billion), were vetoed; and a tax-tightening measure expanding the SENT cargo-monitoring system, worth PLN 1.2 billion (EUR 0.28 billion), was also rejected.
Including roughly PLN 850 million (EUR 198 million) a year that a higher sugar tax would have channeled directly to the National Health Fund, the total in forgone revenue rises to PLN 8.2 billion (EUR 1.91 billion), money.pl calculated, based on Finance Ministry figures presented during the bills' legislative process. For context, the portal noted that Poland's "babciowe" childcare subsidy costs PLN 6 billion (EUR 1.40 billion) annually to fund, while widow's pension payments run PLN 8 billion to 10 billion (EUR 1.86 billion to 2.33 billion) a year.
Separately, a United Surveys by IBRIS poll for Wirtualna Polska, conducted July 24-25 among 1,000 adults, found 52.8% of Poles view the vetoes as primarily political, meant to preserve ties with the opposition, block government reforms and score party-political points. Some 39.9% said Nawrocki was motivated by concerns over legislative quality and the constitution, while 7.3% were undecided.
Views split sharply along party lines: 94% of ruling-coalition voters called the vetoes political, against just 5% who saw substantive motives, while 72% of opposition voters - including supporters of PiS, Razem and Confederation parties - said the vetoes were substantively justified.
Nawrocki has dismissed the criticism. "Some people have a problem with mathematics and statistics, calling me a 'veto machine'. Yet I have signed 245 laws, far more than I have vetoed", he said, adding that critics ignoring the 245-to-41 ratio simply lack the numerical skills to grasp it.
(jh)
Source: PAP, Polish Radio