Party leaders in climate package spat

Prime Minister Donald Tusk at a press conference on Tuesday. Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of opposition party Law and Justice, claimed at his party's congress over the weekend that Tusk should have vetoed the package.

However, Tusk has responded that the opportunity to veto the agreement was lost while Law and Justice was still in power.

“The problem is that the possibility to veto the package was in March 2007, when the then Prime Minister [Jaroslaw] Kaczynski and President [Lech] Kaczynski decided on this,” he said, as cited by the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

Tusk later referred to late President Kaczynski's comments in March 2007, following a meeting of the EC.

“Why did we support this climate solution? Because, as I said at the beginning, Poland was very concerned that this summit should turn out a success,” Kaczynski had said, adding that it would have been “a disaster” for the EU, if the proposed measures had not been adopted.

However, Jaroslaw Kaczynski has since said that his late brother, who was still president in 2008, “had nothing to do” with “the phase in which Donald Tusk dealt a very heavy blow to the economy, by not vetoing the package.”

The 2008 agreement obliges EU member states to achieve the so-called “20-20-20” targets. These call for a 20% reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020, as well as an increase by 20% in energy efficiency, and the reaching of a level 20% of renewables in total energy consumption.

With Poland's energy industry predominantly based on coal, the country faces a challenge in meeting the requirements. Opponents of the measures claim that thousands of jobs could be lost. (nh)