President's Cabinet Chief Paweł Chief of Staff responded to Donald Tusk's criticism after putting fuel taxation to the Constitutional Court. He called the Prime Minister an "economic diletant" and accused him of telling Poles that the fresh taxation would lower the prices on stations. The dispute over tribute turned into an open war for words between the Palace and the government.
Riposta consecutive from the President's Chancellery
The answer to the Prime Minister's entry came rapidly and was personal. Paweł Head of the Cabinet of the president of the Republic of Poland wrote that “it has long been known that the current Prime Minister is an economical diletant”. In the same entry he accused Tusk that he was trying to convince Poles that the imposition of a fresh fuel taxation would lower the prices on stations. The speech was mocking, but behind the mockery was a concrete substantive allegation: that the government confused the fiscal tribute with a mechanics of cheaper refueling. The Chief Officer responded the same day the Prime Minister published his entry, which showed that the Palace had treated the attack as a substance requiring immediate repost.
"Instead of taxes, reduce VAT and excise duty"
The president's associate did not halt at malice. He proposed his own prescription: "Instead of imposing further taxes, delight reduce VAT and excise duty". It is simply a reversal of the logic of the government, according to which it was the tribute from the companies that was to finance the reductions in the charges added to the fuel price. The presidential camp claims that since the aim is to lower prices, the simpler way is to cut taxes paid by drivers alternatively than impose a fresh taxation on sellers who can transfer it to the customer. The government rejects this argument and argues that the tribute is hitting the extraordinary profits of companies alternatively than the retail price of fuel.
That's where the fight started.
The spark was an entry by Donald Tusk from Saturday morning. The Prime Minister wrote about Karol Nawrocki's "shocking decision" which he thought blocked the bill to taxation the tremendous profits of fuel companies and finance cheaper fuels under the CPN programme. He concluded with an appeal: "Remember this at the distributors". Finance Minister Andrzej Domański added a bill, talking about blocked PLN 4 billion, which was expected to defend Poles from advanced fuel prices.
Two narratives on the same bill
The dispute is not just an exchange of epithets. The government presents itself as a defender of drivers against the greed of fuel giants, and the president as an ally of corporations. The law firm reverses this painting and claims that it defends Poles against another taxation and against the law which acts backwards. Nawrocki himself, as quoted by the service in the Economy, argued that "the fresh taxation does not lower fuel prices" due to the fact that its main nonsubjective is to supply the budget. Each side builds its own version of who truly stands on the side of a average man. Publicists besides joined the dispute. Commentator on the “Rzeczpospolita” Krzysztof Adam Kowalczyk assessed the blockade as a “powerful political error” of the President, as he gave the government a convenient pretext to blame him for costly fuel.
The first large clash between the Palace and the government
An argument about windfall taxation is more than an episode. This is 1 of the President's first major clashes with the government in the field of economical policy, and both sides play for the same electorate: drivers looking at the price at the distributor. The individual speech given to the dispute Chiefernaker announces that the next months of the coalition will be hard, and all decision of the president the government will read as political, and vice versa. In the coalition, it is precisely the disputes about money in the voters' wallet that are most fierce, due to the fact that each organization hopes for the same support of tired prices of Poles. The substantive decision will be settled in the Court, but the fight for whose communicative will convince Poles is already underway.
Source: WP News
