Poland’s development minister Jerzy Kwiecinski is to become the country’s new finance minister.
“Prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki has asked President Andrzej Duda to appoint Jerzy Kwiecinski as minister of finance. He will also continue in his job as minister of investment and development,” Piotr Müller, a government spokesman, wrote on Twitter.
The appointment of Mr Kwiecinski, an expert on EU funds who worked at the bloc’s mission to Poland in the 1990s and in Poland’s regional development ministry in the 2000s, gives Mr Morawiecki a close ally in the finance ministry as the country heads towards a crucial parliamentary election next month.
Mr Morawiecki’s Law and Justice party has made a host of social spending pledges — ranging from an expansion of its flagship child benefit programme to tax exemptions for those under 26 and more money for pensioners — central to its campaign platform.
Yet while the proposals are popular with the party’s voters, they provoked disagreements in government, with the hawkish Teresa Czerwinska stepping down as finance minister during a cabinet reshuffle in June.
She was briefly replaced by Marian Banas, who is now stepping down to head the country’s Supreme Audit Office.
Source: FT