Poland's 2024 Budget Approved: Next Stop, President Duda

Warsaw, Jan 18 (AP) Poland's lawmakers voted on Thursday to approve the key 2024 state budget but the draft still needs approval from President Andrzej Duda, who is allied with the right-wing opposition.

The budget also requires endorsement from the Senate and must be presented for Duda's signing by January 29 or the president could call early elections, a move observers say is unlikely.

Latest surveys show support growing for the pro-European Union coalition government and shrinking for the conservative Law and Justice Party that lost power in October elections after eight years of rule.

The lower house or Sejm voted 240-191, with three abstentions, on Thursday to approve the bill, which the Senate will take up on January 24.

The new pro-European Union government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk that took office last month had to work fast to have the budget ready in time.

It provides for government spending of up to 866,4 billion zlotys (USD 214 billion) and a deficit of up to 184 billion zlotys (USD 45 billion) or 5.1 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP).

Compared to the draft by the previous conservative government of the Law and Justice Party, it gives more money to education and health care and less to the president's office and various historical institutions — such as the National Remembrance Institute that investigates Nazi and communist crimes against Poles — that were linked to the previous right-wing government.

“It is a source of great satisfaction for me that indeed ... this budget is for the people,” Tusk said after the vote.