Voters have entrusted Poland’s ruling conservatives with building a prosperous and secure country, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Tuesday in a major policy speech outlining his new government’s priorities.
In a broad-ranging address to parliament, Morawiecki said that maintaining strong GDP growth would be a key goal for his party, which secured a second term in power after winning Poland’s October 13 parliamentary elections.
“Thanks to this, we will be closer to the standard of living in Western Europe with every year,” Morawiecki added.
His address was scheduled to be followed by a vote of confidence in the new government headed by the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party.
Morawiecki’s Cabinet was expected to gain the backing of the lower house, where the conservatives have a majority.
In his speech, the prime minister told parliament that Law and Justice would continue increasing the share of Polish capital in the ownership of domestic companies.
He vowed to simplify the country’s tax system and offer more support for small and medium-sized enterprises.
“Poles are a great nation with a great past. It’s time for a great future,” Morawiecki told deputies, stressing the importance of the family and traditional values.
He said his government would offer extra support for parents with three or more children.
In an apparent reference to efforts by liberals to introduce LGBT-inflected education, Morawiecki warned he would not allow what he described as social experimentation in schools.
PM vows to prevent ‘cultural war’
“Whoever raises an ideological hand against children will be raising a hand against the whole community,” he insisted.
Morawiecki added: “Those who want to poison children with ideology … to break up family ties and enter schools without invitation and write ideological textbooks, those people will be putting an explosive charge under Poland, aiming to trigger a cultural war in Poland. There will be no war, I will not allow it.”
Grzegorz Schetyna, head of the opposition Civic Platform party, gave the prime minister’s speech short shrift.
He said Law and Justice was set to continue with its “ineptitude, breaking of the law, violating the principles of democracy, brutal propaganda and lies.”
Law and Justice, allied with two smaller groupings in a United Right coalition, secured a second term in power after winning Poland’s parliamentary elections in October.
Morawiecki’s new Cabinet was sworn into office on Friday during a ceremony at the presidential palace in Warsaw.
Morawiecki said earlier this month that his new government would largely be a continuation of the previous one.
Law and Justice leader Jarosław Kaczyński said ahead of the elections that his party would bring in a raft of new policies during the first 100 days of its next term in power.
(19. 11. 2019 via thenews.pl)
