(Bloomberg) — Poland’s new President Karol Nawrocki used his veto power for the first time since taking office this month to block the cabinet’s bill curbing energy prices and easing rules for investing in renewables.
“This is the first bill which I’ve decided to veto. It was a kind of blackmail by the parliamentary majority,” Nawrocki said in a speech in Warsaw on Thursday.
He added that he’d proposed his own legislation to extend the freeze on household energy prices.
The energy bill was part of a push by Poland’s government to get the coal-dependent country generating at least 50% of its power from renewable sources by the end of the decade. It would have cut the required distance between wind turbines and households and extended the nine-month power price cap for households at 500 zloty/Mwh ($137) until the end of the year.
It’s the first major clash over legislation between Nawrocki and Prime Minister Donald Tusk, highlighting the tense cohabitation which lies ahead. The opposition-backed nationalist president has said he’s willing to wield his veto to thwart Tusk’s reform agenda.
Since being sworn in as president on Aug. 6, Nawrocki has already put the government on the defensive with his proposals to cut taxes and revamp an airport hub project. He unexpectedly replaced Tusk in a call between Donald Trump and European leaders, in a sign of his emerging clout with the new US administration.
Nawrocki, an advocate for the country’s coal mining industry, is in favor of lower electricity prices, but opposes wind farms being built too close to households. The president’s Spokesman Rafal Leskiewicz said this month that linking energy prices to wind farm regulations in one bill puts Nawrocki in an “awkward position.”
Tusk’s government has argued that both issues are linked as more wind farms, which generate power at lower cost that coal-fueled power stations, will help curb future energy prices — an issue about which Nawrocki has voiced concern.
–With assistance from Piotr Bujnicki.
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