Not So Much a Truce as Temporary Ceasefire for Poland’s Government

The crisis erupted last week when one of the two minor coalition parties, the United Poland of the Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, objected to two crucial laws.

One of these concerned animal welfare. A few weeks ago, the country was shocked to learn about the dreadful conditions on a mink fur farm. The animals were eating each other alive, which was video taped and released on YouTube. The terrible images moved the country's de facto leader, Jarosław Kaczynski, who is known for being an animal lover, to quickly push for legislation to ban such activities. According to the draft law, all fur production would be banned, all circuses with trained animals would have to close, and kosher meat production would have to cease.

But PiS's new high standards on animal welfare were not supported by Ziobro's United Poland, even after Kaczynski called for a unified voting front from the coalition. The crisis had begun.

The second piece of legislation concerned immunity for state officials. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Morawiecki ordered the government to start preparing for a presidential election to be held on 10 May. This was not his decision to make, a court recently ruled. For this, and other reasons, PiS drafted a law under which, "anyone who violates laws in order to prevent COVID-19 is not committing a crime". United Poland was sceptical, again arguing it wants to defend the principle that all citizens are equal.

After a week of difficult negotiations and a media frenzy over the possible collapse of the ruling coalition, all we have is confirmation of the status quo. Ziobro and Kaczynski found out that, apparently, they still need each other.

Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski (L) and Minister of Justice Zbigniew...