Poland’s state-controlled firms will pay $25 million per year to finance a foundation aimed at bolstering its reputation abroad, Treasury Minister Dawid Jackiewicz said on Wednesday.
He said one of the foundation’s tasks will be to defend Poland’s coal industry from European Union plans to curb carbon emissions.
Since winning the first outright parliamentary majority since Poland’s 1989 transition from communism, the Law and Justice (PiS) party has overhauled the rules governing the constitutional court, prompting the EU executive to launch an unprecedented inquiry in January into whether the party has weakened the rule of law — a notion PiS mostly rejects.
“Poland is gaining today a strong weapon in the fight for its good name,” Jackiewicz told a news conference with Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, announcing the Polish National Foundation.
He said it would have an annual budget of over 100 million zlotys ($25 million), roughly the same as the upper chamber of parliament, the Senate.
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