"What happened was wrong and I'm furious" - deputy chief of Civic Coalition Marcin Kierwiński said on Friday in his comment on Thursday's vote lost by the opposition in the Senate. Although he admitted that the mistake made by his fellow lawmakers had been "involuntary", he said they would have to face consequences.
On Thursday, the Senate passed without amendments a legislation needed for Poland to receive money from the EU recovery fund. In a previous vote, the senators had unexpectedly rejected an amendment by Civic Coalition and Polish People's Party, attaching a preamble to the bill that would have regulated methods of spending money from the EU recovery fund.
According to official vote count published at the Senate website, votes of two Civic Coalition senators turned out to have decided about the rejection of the amendment. Aleksander Pociej voted against the preamble, and Leszek Czarnobaj did not take part in the vote. Both voted remotely.
"What happened was wrong and I'm furious" - Civic Platform chief secretary and Civic Coalition deputy chief Marcin Kierwiński told "Radio Zet" on Friday. In his opinion the preamble had a "symbolic" meaning, but "symbols are very important and there must be consequences".
Kierwiński added that the issue would be resolved. "Today (Civic Platform) chairman Borys Budka will meet with the chief of Senate group, and later party procedures will follow. We will deal with this matter quickly" - he said. In his view, although the senators' mistakes were "involuntary", they would still have to face consequences.
"But I'm mostly mad that we failed along the whole legislative process to secure these funds for Poles, and it's not the Senate's fault, but the Sejm's" - he said.
In his opinion, these funds could not have been secured because "the Left had thrown PiS a lifebelt". "I would like to ask why the Left acted this way in the Sejm? Because everything was lost at that stage" - Kierwiński said.
"As opposition we must now think how to prevent these funds from being seized by the government" - he added and stressed the opposition would have to monitor recovery fund spending.
On Thursday evening, senator Aleksander Pociej apologised for his mistake. He explained at a press conference that during the vote he had simultaneously been taking part in a Council of Europe session.
"We were making decisions regarding the agenda of the upcoming CoE plenary session and whether to include Ryanair plane hijacking and all the things that later happened to Mr (Roman) Protasevich in Belarus. Apparently, simultaneous votings are not always easy to coordinate. I made a mistake, for which I apologise to everyone" - Pociej said.
The chief of of the Civic Coalition Senate group Marcin Bosacki also expressed his remorse regarding the outcome of the vote. "As the chief of the Civic Coalition Senate group I would also like to apologise to our voters and all citizens for this mistake" - he said.
He stressed that all procedures had been followed. "We reminded everyone about this vote, about its importance. Unfortunately, we failed to make sure and ended one vote short of passing the preamble amendment" - Bosacki explained.
The senator also extended "words of remorse and apology" on behalf on senator Czarnobaj who had lost internet connection during the vote.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, PAP