15 May 2003

Following two days of fierce fighting in parliament and many obstruction attempts by the League of Polish Families (LPR), the Sejm has adopted amendments to the European Referendum Law, permitting publication of the estimated turnout.

After the first day of voting, on the evening of June 7, referendum commissions will make available to the public the number of ballots issued and the total number of eligible voters within specific constituencies. In this way it will be easy to establish the turnout.
In order for a referendum to be valid, a level of 50 percent of eligible voters must be met; if the turnout is below this level, the referendum is invalid. The parliament would likely then make the decision on ratification of the Accession Treaty. But Polish supporters of European integration want to avoid this at all costs.

After the State Election Commission unexpectedly announced that making public the turnout during a two-day vote (as was the case in Lithuania, where the 50 percent threshold is also obligatory) was against the law, the Euro-friendly Civic Platform (PO) immediately submitted amendments to the law. These were supported by the largest parliamentary caucus of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and so endorsement of the amendments was decided the moment they were submitted to the Sejm.

Still, the League of Polish Families (LPR) attempted to block the law by submitting over 300 corrections-the amendments themselves amounted to a single page of typed text. Under the regulations, all had first to be reviewed by the relevant Sejm committee and then voted on by the Sejm. After two days of fierce fighting between the League deputies-Roman Giertych, Gabriel Janowski and Bogdan Pęk, the architect of the corrections, on one hand, and chairman of the legislative committee Ryszard Kalisz of the SLD and Sejm Speaker Marek Borowski on the other-the LPR left the Sejm in protest; earlier its deputies turned down a proposal to participate in the work of the legislative committee.

Eventually, the amendments were endorsed by 267 votes to 10, with seven abstentions. The amendments still have to be approved by the Senate and signed by the president. In reality, there is no chance that this will not happen: the Senate is controlled by the SLD and President Aleksander Kwaśniewski announced that he would sign the law the moment the PO submitted the amendments.


The Lithuanian referendum gave rise to a surge of optimism among Polish politicians; with a 60-percent turnout, over 90 percent of Lithuanians supported EU accession. Both President Kwaśniewski and Prime Minister Leszek Miller congratulated the Lithuanians and expressed hope that the result of the Polish referendum would be similar.

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