The finance minister stays. Will he be deputy prime minister?

Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced in the Sejm on Tuesday that he would submit a request to President Karol Nawrocki to appoint Andrzej Domański, Minister of Finance and Economy, as deputy prime minister.

During the debate on PiS's motion to dismiss Domański, the Prime Minister said, among other things, that Law and Justice politicians "have a bone in their throat about Poland's success."

The head of government said that if PiS wants to dismiss someone from the government, it means that this person is a very good minister.

Due to the fact that you appreciated Andrzej Domański so much, I will submit a request to the president to nominate Minister Domański as deputy prime minister of the Polish government, announced the head of government, turning to PiS MPs.

During the parliamentary debate, the position of the KO club was presented by its head, Zbigniew Konwiński. Addressing PiS MPs, he said that they were submitting a motion of no confidence in the Minister of Finance at a time when the Polish economy was growing the fastest in the European Union, as well as at a time when investment outlays of companies were increasing and Poland's importance was growing.

And then you raise a vote of no confidence in the Polish economy, it doesn't make sense, said Konwiński.

Speaking about Domański, he emphasized that "the minister of finance who introduced Poland to the G20 certainly does not deserve to be dismissed and will continue to perform his function."

He added that in 2023, i.e. at the end of PiS's rule, the average annual inflation was 11.4%, and Poland was verging on economic recession, and - as he said - government revenues were also decreasing.

Konwiński also accused the PiS government of creating a "crypto budget". The official (budget) deficit in 2023 was supposedly PLN 85 billion (...). Only outside the budget, PLN 88 billion was financed, the total deficit amounted to PLN 170 billion. This is the truth about the deficit during the PiS government - said the head of the KO club.

Przemysław Czarnek, vice-president of this club, speaking on behalf of PiS, said that Prime Minister Donald Tusk should have dismissed Domański a long time ago. He accused the head of the Ministry of Finance of making mistakes in budget estimates.

No person, in any civilized government, in any country, is able to stay in office for more than one day if he makes an unfavorable mistake of PLN 120 billion in just three years - said Czarnek.

The PiS politician criticized Domański for causing a sudden increase in public debt, which - as he said - means that the state has no ability to respond at all in times of crisis.

Poles must pay because you cannot react; plus 30 percent for coal, plus 64 percent for pellets, plus 23 percent for energy, plus 26 percent for heating oil, almost plus 50 percent for diesel oil, almost plus 40 percent for petrol. And it's all a matter of the state being unable to respond due to such debt. And this is a shame, because it is the result of the public finance disaster that you caused - Czarnek said to the representatives of the ruling majority.

PiS MPs accused Minister Andrzej Domański of leading public finances almost to a disaster. During the meeting of the parliamentary finance committee, which issued a negative opinion on the no-confidence motion, MP Zbigniew Kuźmiuk stated that the applicants' reservations were raised by, among others, the level of budget deficits recorded in subsequent budgets, including the draft budget for 2027.

These 4 budgets with gigantic deficits mean that the sum of budget deficits alone will exceed PLN 1 trillion, and the public debt related to the implementation of these deficits will amount to PLN 1.4 trillion. For comparison, the public debt generated by all governments from 1990 to 2023 amounted to PLN 1.7 trillion, Kuźmiuk said during the commission.

PiS representatives also alleged that Domański had not been able to achieve the budget revenues he had planned in each year since he took over as head of the Ministry of Finance.

Deputy Minister of Finance Hanna Majszczyk, who responded to the allegations of opposition MPs during the committee meeting, pointed out that the state of public finances was influenced by events of many years. She indicated that the purchase of debt incurred, among others, by the Covid fund in 2024-2026 reached almost 2 percentage points, or almost PLN 80 billion. She added that the level of public debt was also influenced by events from previous years.

High levels of inflation in previous years - which in some periods allowed debt to grow - led to high indexation of pensions, which became a permanent part of the state's expenditure base. As an example, in 2022 the level of imbalance in expenses in ZUS and KRUS was over PLN 60 billion, and the imbalance is at the level of PLN 120 billion. The debt must increase by this much to cover these expenses, said the deputy head of the Ministry of Finance.