This Week's Parliament Meetings May Be Called Off Amid Turmoil Around Ousted Lawmakers

Interia reports that the Presidium of the Sejm (Speaker and Deputy Speakers) will convene at 10:00GMT/11:00CET to formally approve a decision to postpone the meetings of the lower house of parliament planned for this week. Note that lawmakers were due to debate the revised 2024 budget bill in second reading on Wednesday and Thursday, as the deadline for submitting the fiscal plan to the Presidential Palace looms large.

• One of the Deputy Speakers told Interia that the Presidium will meet at 10:00GMT/11:00CET, which will be followed by a meeting with heads of all parliamentary caucuses half an hour later, with all options on the table.
• This comes as local media outlets have been circulating source reports suggesting that the police have received arrest warrants against two senior opposition politicians sentenced for abuse of power, which opens the door to their detention.
• As flagged earlier, the sentencing of Mariusz Kaminski and Maciej Wasik is contested by their party and President Andrzej Duda. The head of state pre-emptively pardoned the officials in 2015 in an unprecedented and legally dubious move.
• The turmoil around Kaminski and Wasik, who pledged to participate in the upcoming parliamentary meetings despite formally losing their seats, raises concerns that the main opposition party could challenge the bills passed in their absence.
• One of the scenarios fleshed out by observers would involve the new budget being taken to the Constitutional Tribunal, with the main opposition party claiming that two of its lawmakers were forcibly prevented from voting on it.