PM Kopacz rebuffs additional referendum questions

“There will be no consent on behalf of [Civic] Platform for broadening the September referendum to take in further questions,” she affirmed.

The drive to include supplementary questions is being led by Beata Szydło, candidate for prime minister of the Law and Justice party for the forthcoming October general election.

She submitted a petition on Wednesday to outgoing head of state President Bronisław Komorowski, who called the initial referendum.

Komorowski has himself brushed off the appeal, saying that “one can add to a diary or a school trip”, noting that if Law and Justice wants to press ahead, the initiative to widen a referendum would need the backing of a majority of MPs throughout parliament.

Law and Justice wants to include questions about lowering the retirement age (the government raised it in 2012), the minimum age for children to start school (currently six in Poland) and on whether there should be restrictions on the sale of state-owned forests.

Kopacz criticised Law and Justice's appeal, particularly with regard to the retirement question.

“If someone is trying to use populism today to destroy the stability of public finances, then I ask, do you want to have a second Greece in Poland?”

The schedule to raise the retirement age gradually to 67 for both sexes was introduced, according to Civic Platform, to compensate for a demographic crisis.

The ratio of Polish workers to pensioners is currently at 3:1, but it has been estimated that by 2040 it may be 2:1, and by 2060 1:1.

The three questions set to be included in the referendum pertain to the possible introduction of single-member constituencies for elections to Poland's lower house of parliament, whether state financing of political parties should be maintained and the adaptation of tax laws. (nh)

Source: PAP