Poland

Polish Prime Minister Gives Position But Takes Control

Classified Polnews

Warsaw, Poland 14 January, 2007 - Poland's Prime Minister Lech Kaczynski appointed a coalitions partner's candidate, Samoobrona's Anna Kalata, to the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy that had control over the social insurance program, ZUS, but then promptly had a law passed that transferred control from that Committee to The Prime Minister. In the transfer to the Prime Minister, Samoobrona lost the control of ZUS that it wanted.

And since the Ministry now does not control ZUS, the Polish Parliament Social Policy Committee must have the Prime Minister at its meetings in order to deal with ZUS. So the Committee has now asked the Prime Minister to attend its meetings.

The transfer from the committee to the Prime Minister is generally seen to be the result of Kaczynski's lack of trust in the new Samoobrona Minister Anna Kalata and Samoobrona in general.