The President of Poland proposes amendments to the law on Russian influence in the country due to criticism from the EU and the US

Polish President Andrzej Duda will propose amendments to the countryʼs Russian influence law, which has drawn criticism from the European Union and the United States for the alleged threat of election fraud.

RFM24 writes about it.

Polandʼs ruling party has proposed legislation that would allow a special commission to investigate whether Polish opposition parties allowed Russia to influence their country. Duda signed it and noted that he would send the law to the Constitutional Tribunal for consideration only after it enters into force.

The US State Department and the European Commission expressed concern that the law could effectively bar opposition figures from public office.

"Stunned by these accusations, [...] I prepared an amendment to the law, a series of provisions regulating or changing the issues in this law that caused the most controversy," Andrzej Duda noted.

The amendments would include provisions that would ban MPs from being members of a special commission, allow appeals to a general court rather than an administrative one, and remove provisions that would allow people to be barred from public office. Duda also suggests that the public monitor the commissionʼs work.

Opposition politicians criticized the president for changing his mind on a law he had already signed and said the amendments would not change its substance.

"The amendment proposed by the president as a result of public pressure does not change anything. The entire draft law on the establishment of an illegal judicial body should be thrown into the trash," wrote the leader of the Polish Peasant Party Władysław Kosiniak-Kamish.

• The law provides for the creation of a state commission to investigate Russian influence in Poland. The commission will have the powers of a prosecutor and a judge. It will check the activities of public officials or members of the countryʼs top management from 2007 to 2022 and will be able to punish them. Experts say that this law can be used to put pressure on the opposition before the parliamentary elections in the fall of 2023. The current Polish government accuses the leader of the opposition "Civil Coalition" and former Prime Minister Donald Tusk of concluding gas deals beneficial to Russia during his reign.