Polish President Andrzej Duda unexpectedly said Friday that he was proposing urgent amendments to a contentious law on Russian influences that he signed this week and that drew U.S. and European Union criticism.
Duda said he was aware of the controversies, also in Poland, surrounding the law proposed by the governing conservative Law and Justice party and was addressing them by sending amendments to the parliament on Friday. He urged the lawmakers to act swiftly.
In its current form, the law will create a powerful committee, ostensibly meant to investigate Russian influence in Poland but is seen as primarily targeting opposition leader Donald Tusk, who is also an ex-prime minister and former top EU official. Law and Justice accuses Tusk of having been too friendly toward Russia as prime minister between 2007 and 2014, and making gas deals favorable to Russia before he went to Brussels to be the president of the European Council between 2014 and 2019.
Law and Justice spokesman Rafaé Bochenk reacted by saying that the "main goal of the bill remains unchanged" despite the announced amendments. He stressed that the goal is to "show the truth about Russia's covert influences in Poland."
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