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tool for the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) since the party overhauled its line-up
to ensure a loyalist majority. It appears unlikely that the tribunal would decide on any changes in the bill, which is now going to enter in force anyway, following Duda’s sign-off.
Israel’s early reaction to the president’s decision was timid. “Israel has not-
ed that the Polish President had deferred the law to the Constitutional Court for clarifications and amendments,” the Israeli foreign ministry said on Twitter. “We hope that within allotted time until the court’s deliberations are concluded,
camps that the Nazis set up on Polish soil in the 1940s. The campaign for accuracy in describing the atrocities has been largely successful, with major US media taking care not to use the inflammatory wording.
However, the current right-wing Law and Justice government considers these efforts insufficient. The ruling party claims Poland is regularly besmirched by accusations of its complicity in the Holocaust.
Poland’s attempts to contain the international controversy about the
entirely. They kill the parents of the second, torturing the kids. They loot and raze the house. Could one, in good conscience, say that the second family is guilty for the murder of the first?"
On the evening preceding Duda’s announcement, a group of nationalists rallied in front of the president’s place urging him to sign off on the bill and shouting anti-Semitic slogans.
The bill has sparked anger in the US and Ukraine. “We are concerned about the repercussions this draft legislation, if enacted, could have on Poland’s strategic interests and relationships – including with the United States and Israel,” the US State Department said on January 31.
The bill also sparked anger in Ukraine for targeting Ukrainian nationalist ideology, a long-standing divisive point in the relationship between Warsaw and Kyiv. For Ukraine, nationalists were patriots who fought for independence. In Poland, however, they are largely seen as mass murderers.
The bill has now worsened Poland's relationships with countries with which it has had strong and friendly ties: the US, Israel, Ukraine, as well as with the European Union, with which Warsaw feuds over the reform of the judiciary. Virtually the only voices of support for the proposed bill came from the Russian parliament, the Duma, and the pro-Rus- sian Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
“Warsaw has long objected to the Western media’s use of phrases such as “Polish death camps”
we will manage to agree on changes and corrections. Israel and Poland hold a joint responsibility to research and preserve the history of the Holocaust,” the ministry added.
The Nazi Germany-orchestrated killing of approximately six million European Jews – including nearly all of Poland's three million Jews – happened for
the most part in Germany-occupied Poland. Warsaw has long objected to the Western media’s use of phrases such as “Polish death camps” for extermination
bill have been plagued by bad luck and apparent lack of preparation. A televised statement by the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was wrongly translated on YouTube by the video service’s automated translation service
to say that the death camps were in fact Polish.
Morawiecki also tweeted a bizarre analogy of Poland's role during the Nazi extermination of the Jews: "A gang of professional thugs enters a two-family house. They kill the first family almost
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Poland's PiS
puts centrist
face forward as Morawiecki shakes up cabinet
Wojciech Kosc in Warsaw
Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party car- ried out a major reshuffle of the government on January 9, replacing most controversial ministers with more moderate appointees.
The reshuffle appears to be an attempt by PiS to move the government to a more centrist position
Bulgaria to apply to enter Eurozone waiting room in first half of 2018
Denitsa Koseva in Sofia
Bulgaria will most likely apply to enter the Euro- zone’s waiting room, the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM2), in the first half of 2018, Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov said on January 11.
An application to enter the ERM2 during Bul- garia’s six-month presidency of the EU Council
The scope of the changes indicates Morawiecki has been allowed a lot of manoeuvring room by PiS’ chairman and de facto decision maker, Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
ahead of three successive elections in the coming years. Getting rid of some of the most unpopular and contentious ministers could bolster the ruling party ahead of an important local election due in the autumn. The local election will be followed
See page 2
was already expected. In December, the country got a positive signal from Brussels that it might be accepted in the ERM2 as Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commission’s Vice-President for the Euro and Social Dialogue, said that it would not be
See page 3
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