Poland is braced for the economic and political fall out following the weekend break-up of the ruling coalition.
Yesterday's collapse cast into doubt the fate of fiscal reforms and the outcome of a European Union entry referendum in June.
Poland's center-left government coalition collapsed yesterday after one the ruling parties opposed a key measure on preparing for EU membership only three months before a referendum on joining the bloc was due to take place.Prime Minister Leszek Miller yesterday expelled his junior coalition partners, leaving his social democrats heading a minority cabinet and raising the possibility of elections in the autumn.
Analysts said that without Peasants Party's 40 seats, the leftist cabinet may lack the legislative clout to approve fiscal reforms aimed at making the budget flexible enough to cope with the costs of Poland's entry into the EU next year.
After a meeting failed to patch up the row Prime Minister Leszek Miller demanded the resignation of the two ministers of the Polish Peasant Party (PSL), including its leader, Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kalinowski.
"In refusing their support for the government program, the PSL has excluded itself from the government coalition.
One can't be in the government and the opposition at the same time," said Miller. "I won't be held hostage by anyone," he said on national television.
The row was triggered on Friday, when the PSL voted down in parliament a special tax to bring Poland's inadequate road system up to EU standards.
The stormy meeting "confirmed that the subsequent functioning of the coalition would have resulted in a climate of friction, haggling and conflicts," government spokesman Michal Tober was quoted as saying by the PAP news agency.
Miller's government took office in October 2001 with one of its main aims to get the former communist country into the European Union. After successfully completing negotiations last December, Poland is now on track to join the EU in May 2004.
While Miller's government will not automatically fall, his Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and socialist Labor Union (UP) ally will have difficulty finding a replacement to the PSL's 42 lawmakers to keep its parliamentary majority.
The other parties in the parliament would make odd partners for the ex-communist SLD, being either conservative or populist anti-EU. Miller left the impression in the television interview he was favoring trying to continue on with a minority government. The SLD and UP have 216 deputies in the 460-seat parliament.
"The SLD-UP coalition remains. We will seek support for our program for development and European integration among the parliament and the people," said Miller. "I am confident that we will find partners in the parliament who share these values," he added.
The main two opposition parties, the liberal Civic Platform (65 seats) and conservative Law and Justice party (42 seats), have ruled out joining an SLD government.