Prime Minister Donald Tusk has criticised opposition-aligned President Karol Nawrocki’s decision to refer the windfall tax act on fuel companies to Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal. According to the head of government, the measure “could have financed cheaper fuel at petrol stations”.
On July 24 Nawrocki referred the act, formally the law of July 3, 2026 taxing extraordinary profits from the sale of liquid fuels between March and December 2026, to the tribunal for a preventive constitutional review.
In the President’s view, the legislation violates the constitutional principle that laws should not apply retroactively.
On July 25, Tusk wrote on X: “President Karol Nawrocki has made a shocking decision. He blocked a law that would have taxed the enormous profits of fuel companies, making it possible to finance cheaper fuel at our petrol stations (the CPN programme). Remember this the next time you’re at the pump.”
CPN, or Fuel Prices Lower, was a package of VAT and excise cuts and price caps introduced in March, after the outbreak of the conflict in the Middle East pushed up oil prices, and wound down at the start of July.
Finance minister Andrzej Domański said the President’s decision blocked legislation that would have generated 4 billion złoty (€940 million) for measures designed to shield consumers from high fuel prices.
“Instead of siding with the Polish people, the president has sided with fuel companies” benefiting from high prices at the pump, Domański said.
He added that by referring the bill to the tribunal, the President had “once again struck at public finances”.
Later that day, the head of the President’s Office Paweł Szefernaker responded. According to him, “it has long been clear that the current prime minister is an economic amateur”, and now, as he wrote, “is trying to convince Poles that imposing a new fuel tax would lower prices at petrol stations”.
“Instead of introducing more taxes, please reduce VAT and excise duty, just as the Law and Justice (PiS) government did. That genuinely lowers prices rather than shifting additional costs onto drivers. President Karol Nawrocki has protected Poles from solutions that could have led to record-high petrol and diesel prices,” he stated.
Explaining why he refused to sign the bill, Nawrocki said there were serious constitutional concerns surrounding the legislation and stressed he was not vetoing it.
“The law is scheduled to enter into force in August, but the tax would apply to income earned as early as the beginning of March. This amounts to an attempt to tax economic activity retroactively,” the President said.
He said that one of the fundamental guarantees of freedom in a state governed by the rule of law was expressed in the Latin maxim Lex retro non agit, the law does not operate retroactively.
The President also stressed that he had “a duty to consider the consequences of this law for the budgets of Polish families”.
“After the expiration of the protective measures, drivers have already experienced higher fuel prices. An additional tax amounting to as much as 60 per cent of the tax base would ultimately be passed on to customers at petrol stations. The bill would not be paid only by drivers. Farmers, transport companies, small businesses, and families buying food, whose prices also depend on transport costs, would all bear the burden,” Nawrocki said.
Under the legislation, the 60 per cent rate would apply not to all profits but to margins exceeding those achieved in 2025 plus 20 per cent, and would cover fuel producers as well as importers.
“A new tax does not lower fuel prices. Above all, it is intended to bring more money into the state budget. I cannot accept a situation in which an attempt to patch up public finances is presented to citizens as protecting their interests, when the real consequence will be another wave of price increases,” the President said.
Nawrocki had pledged during the 2025 presidential election that he would not support taxes that would mean higher prices for the public or a higher tax burden for individuals. Instead he has urged the ruling coalition to keep its promise of raising the amount free of income tax from 30,000 złoty to 60,000 złoty (€14,100), in line with promises Tusk’s Civic Coalition had made in the 2023 parliamentary election that brought it to power.
Though Nawrocki has agreed to legislation which taxed allegedly excessive profits made by Polish banks: in November 2025 he signed a law raising banks’ corporate income tax from 19 per cent to 30 per cent in 2026, falling to 23 per cent from 2028, a measure which the Polish Bank Association maintains will reduce banks’ ability to lend and lead to higher charges for customers in the future.
In another foray into energy policy the head of state has proposed a separate bill, submitted to parliament on November 12, 2025, that would lower household electricity prices by around 33 per cent by cutting a range of taxes and charges included in electricity bills.
The bill has not been debated: Sejm speaker Włodzimierz Czarzasty, who is also leader of the New Left party in Tusk’s coalition, has kept it off the agenda, arguing it would cost the budget some 50 billion złoty (€11.7 billion) a year and that the President has not indicated how it would be financed.
The ruling majority has already blocked the President’s call for a referendum on the EU’s climate policies and the Green Deal: in May the Senate rejected his first request by 62 votes to 32, with one abstention.
Though Nawrocki on July 23 submitted a second request to parliament for a nationwide referendum on whether Poland should continue implementing the European Union’s climate policies, which he argues are too costly.
The revised proposal features a simplified question to be put to voters on September 27.
Nawrocki’s originally proposed question was: “Are you in favour of implementing EU climate policy, which has led to an increase in citizens’ cost of living, energy prices and the cost of running business and agricultural activity?”
Following criticism that the question was clearly intended to elicit a specific answer, this time he has proposed a more neutral one: “Are you in favour of Poland implementing the European Union’s climate policy?”
“I’m looking for compromises, looking for solutions,” said Nawrocki on July 23 in Dębica, southeast Poland, while announcing the new referendum bid. “If the Senate was not happy with the question, we have prepared a completely different, new question.”
Under Poland’s constitution, the President may call a referendum with the consent of the Senate, the upper chamber of parliament, granted by an absolute majority with at least half of senators present. The chamber’s next sitting is scheduled for August 5-7.
The Tusk government argues that it has made headway in softening the EU’s climate policies: On November 5, 2025 EU environment ministers agreed to delay the launch of ETS2, the extension of the Emissions Trading System (ETS) to buildings and road transport, from 2027 to 2028, a move backed by the European Parliament in February 2026.
Though Nawrocki argues that all the government has secured is postponement of some elements and minor technical adjustments.
“ETS will remain an increasingly expensive, increasingly extensive system, and increasingly burdensome for the Polish economy,” he said.
The President’s moves came in the wake of a campaign by his allies in the opposition PiS which called on the Polish government to unilaterally withdraw from the ETS. PiS has welcomed Nawrocki’s referendum initiative, stating that on fundamental issues such as climate policy Poles should decide rather than Brussels bureaucrats.
The Tusk government says that any move to leave the ETS cannot be made without either incurring hefty fines or withdrawing from the EU altogether. It maintains that there is no possibility of one country suspending part of EU law.
