Polish cabinet reshuffle boosts control over state companies
WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party announced its governing cabinet lineup on Friday after winning a parliamentary election last month, setting out plans to consolidate control over state-owned utilities and financial companies. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, a former banker, kept his job, but PiS dissolved the energy ministry
WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party announced its governing cabinet lineup on Friday after winning a parliamentary election last month, setting out plans to consolidate control over state-owned utilities and financial companies.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, a former banker, kept his job, but PiS dissolved the energy ministry. Its responsibilities for energy and mining companies will be transferred to a new treasury ministry to oversee state assets.
"It is about making use of all reserves, including those which are part of the state treasury, which is in our vital interest," Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters late on Friday.
PiS also created a new climate ministry headed by COP 24 president Michal Kurtyka, amid growing pressure for the EU to fight climate change.
PiS, a socially conservative grouping with a left-leaning economic agenda, had sought to increase the government's control over the economy after winning the previous election in 2015.
It kept large state assets such as PZU
In the new cabinet, deputy prime minister Jacek Sasin will lead a treasury ministry which will manage state assets worth billions of euros.
The long-standing ally of Morawiecki - Jerzy Kwiecinski - will leave his post as finance minister and be replaced by Tadeusz Koscinski, a former deputy finance minister.
(Reporting by Marcin Goclowski, Agnieszka Barteczko, Alan Charlish, and Pawel Florkiewicz; Editing by Chris Reese, Justyna Pawlak and Chizu Nomiyama)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
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