Polish Ruling Coalition Partners Sign Deal to Ease Tensions

(Bloomberg) -- Poland’s ruling Law & Justice party and its partners agreed on Saturday to cement their cooperation, alleviating tensions that threatened to break up the coalition and trigger snap elections. Details of the agreement weren’t disclosed.

“We have three years ahead of us until the next parliamentary elections and I am absolutely sure that these will be years well spent for Poland,” said Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the Law & Justice leader, in Warsaw.

The agreement precedes a rearrangement of the government, whose new shape will be announced in one or two weeks, according to earlier comments by the coalition partners. According to Jaroslaw Gowin, who will return to office after resigning in May over a disagreement about the timing of the presidential election during the Covid pandemic, the new cabinet “will have a more condensed structure, there will be fewer ministries.”

Gowin said Friday that Kaczynski could serve as deputy prime minister.

Kaczynski is the driving force behind the campaign to reshape Poland along his traditional Catholic values that’s put the country in an unprecedented standoff with the European Union. While wielding absolute over the government, he’s until now done so from behind the scenes as party leader and an ordinary member of parliament.

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