The motion, filed by the conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, was defeated on Thursday by 235 votes to 201, with no abstentions.
Minutes before the vote, Tusk told lawmakers Krajewski would remain minister because he was doing well in the job and “serves Poland well,” while PiS was responsible for the Mercosur deal, the Green Deal and the inflow of Ukrainian grain.
“Minister Stefan Krajewski is a decent, strong man. He is a very good agriculture minister. Minister Krajewski serves the Republic well and will remain minister, whether you like it or not,” Tusk said, adding that Poland was set to receive a record budget under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy.
Presenting PiS’ case, lawmaker Krzysztof Ciecióra accused Krajewski of inaction amid a farm crisis, allowing trade agreements with Mercosur and Ukraine, politicizing institutions and making production unprofitable. He said Krajewski had pledged to challenge the Mercosur agreement at the EU’s top court and still had 11 days to do so.
PiS and far-right Confederation lawmakers repeated in the debate that the minister had failed to block Mercosur and had not taken the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Government coalition lawmakers defended Krajewski. Ruling centrist Civic Platform (KO)’s Zbigniew Konwiński said PiS was trying to pin its own failures on the minister. “What PiS did to agriculture can be called sabotage,” he said.
Krajewski said the motion contained not a single hard fact and was political revenge, adding that after he took office “the arrangements ended, audits began and notifications were filed with the prosecutor’s office.”
He called the Mercosur agreement the “illegitimate child of Beata Szydło and Mateusz Morawiecki” and described PiS lawmakers as “false defenders” of farmers.
After the vote, Tusk wrote on X that under the Common Agricultural Policy Poland’s countryside would receive a record EUR 48.3 billion from the EU, “more than Germans or Italians.”
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Source: PAP