WARSAW (Reuters) -Polish President Andrzej Duda has signed the 2025 budget but will ask the Constitutional Tribunal to check the legality of some of the bill’s provisions, his senior aide said on Friday.
Poland’s pro-European government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk has promised to reverse reforms introduced by the previous nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) administration which caused conflict with the EU over rule of law concerns.
However, Tusk faces resistance from allies of the former ruling party who remain in positions of power, most notably Duda, whose term ends later this year.
Duda’s office said on Friday he had signed the budget but would send it to the Tribunal as it includes budget cuts for the Constitutional Tribunal and National Council of the Judiciary.
Tusk’s government has questioned the legality of appointments to both institutions made under PiS. Duda has said the appointments were legitimate.
“It should be clearly emphasized that the budget bill …cannot result in any blocking of the payment of remuneration of legally appointed judges of the Constitutional Tribunal or the National Council of the Judiciary,” said Duda’s aide Malgorzata Paprocka.
Parts of the budget must “be subject to assessment by the Constitutional Tribunal”, she said.
(Reporting by Anna Koper and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Editing by Ros Russell)
