President vetoes changes to how Poland elects MEPs
PR dla Zagranicy
Paweł Kononczuk
16.08.2018 12:48
President Andrzej Duda said on Thursday he would veto legislation sponsored by Poland’s ruling conservatives aiming to change the way in which the country chooses its MEPs in elections next year.
Andrzej Duda. Photo: PAP/Jacek Turczyk
Critics of the new regulations had argued that the changes would in practice raise the threshold and prevent smaller parties from securing seats in the European Parliament in elections scheduled for May 26.
Duda said at a press conference on Thursday: “I refuse to sign [the legislation] and am returning it to the Sejm [the lower house of parliament] to be reconsidered.”
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the 28-nation European Union, of which Poland has been a member since 2004.
Duda, who hails from the ruling, conservative Law and Justice party, previously said that he "cannot see the justification" for a "drastic" planned government reform of rules for how Poland will elect its members of the European Parliament.
(pk)