Talking to the public Polish Radio on Wednesday, Jacek Sasin said: "I cannot say at the moment whether this matter will be completed, but not because of a lack of determination, but because of the parliamentary calendar.
Michał Zieliński/PAP
It will be hard to establish a commission to investigate alleged Russian influence on Polish internal security in the current parliamentary term, Poland’s state assets minister said on Wednesday.
Talking to the public Polish Radio on Wednesday, Jacek Sasin said: “I cannot say at the moment whether this matter will be completed, but not because of a lack of determination, but because of the parliamentary calendar.
“We have only one sitting of the Sejm (lower house – PAP) next week,” he said.
According to Sasin, the ruling party’s commitment to the matter has not been lost, “because it is very important to unravel this issue, to show it to the public.”
The law establishing the commission, which will cover the years 2007 to 2022, came into force on May 31, but just after signing it into law, Andrzej Duda, the Polish president, tabled an amendment causing a delay.
The commission, which in its original un-amended guise would have had the power to bar politicians from public office if they had been found to have been operating under Russian influence, sparked severe criticism with even the US and EU expressing disapproval.
Critics feared, in particular, the commission could be used as a political tool to prevent opposition leader Donald Tusk, who is also a former prime minister, from running in the parliamentary elections which will be held on October 15.
If nobody is appointed then the commission will be unable to exert the harmful influence its critics claim it could have wielded over the election campaign.
But Sasin alleged that Russian influence in Poland was “very strong” at the time when the Civic Platform (PO), the main opposition party, was in power, which was evidenced “by numerous statements by (PO’s leader – PAP) Donald Tusk, for example, about the willingness to sell national assets, like Lotos, into Russian hands.”