Piotr Nowak/PAP

The newly-appointed speaker of the Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament, has said that during the current era of intense politics, the house must be prepared to take decisions 24 hours a day.

Szymon Holownia made the statement at a press conference ahead of a Sejm sitting on Tuesday.

“We would like the government in Poland to act effectively and efficiently, based on a parliamentary majority, as soon as possible,” Holownia told journalists. “And I believe that will happen – despite the various speed bumps that some may put in the road.

“We are in a hot time politically and the Sejm must be ready 24 hours a day to take decisions, if the current politics so demand,” he said.

The speaker went on to outline the most immediate tasks facing the new parliament.

“Today the Sejm will deal with a very important matter from the point of view of the legislative process…,” Holownia said. “We will create parliamentary committees. I hope we will vote efficiently on their composition.”

Holownia went on to say that in the afternoon, he and the deputy speakers would take part in all the committee sittings in order to inaugurate them and to elect their presidiums.

He said the second issue parliament would deal with on Tuesday was to elect members of the State Tribunal. On Wednesday morning, Holownia said, parliament would conduct the first reading on a civic motion on in vitro fertilisation.

He said that as the Sejm speaker he had “unfrozen” 10 civic-initiative bills that had been discontinued by the previous parliament.

“In this parliamentary term, we will not freeze any civic-initiative bills,” he said, vowing to consider them all within six months.