The Constitutional Accountability Committee of Poland’s lower house recommended on Friday that Governor Adam Glapinski be brought before the State Tribunal, which rules on constitutional responsibility, committee chairman Zdzislaw Gawlik said. The committee accuses Glapinski of violating Poland’s constitution and statutes by indirectly financing the budget deficit through central-bank asset purchases in 2020-2021, conducting those operations without proper authorization from the Monetary Policy Council, and politicizing the bank. Glapinski denies the accusations and called the proceedings baseless and detrimental to Poland’s national interests.
The committee’s report now goes to the full Sejm for a vote, though no date has been set, and it can take place no sooner than 21 days after lawmakers receive the report. Adoption requires an absolute majority with at least half of the statutory number of deputies present; the Constitutional Tribunal ruled in 2024 that a three-fifths majority is needed, a ruling the government does not accept. If the resolution passes, Glapinski would be suspended from office. His second and final term expires in June 2028.
The governance risk became operational on Saturday, when Monetary Policy Council member Ludwik Kotecki told the Polish Press Agency that a suspension could make it difficult to convene MPC meetings. Kotecki said the bank would keep functioning without Glapinski, but the bigger headache would be pulling together meetings: if Glapinski can still convene and attend, the council’s work should mostly proceed as usual; if not, a council member would chair, with Ireneusz Dabrowski designated for that role. He flagged practical snags: there is currently no first deputy governor, the second deputy governor’s tenure ends in November, and appointments to the management board have turned political, with Prime Minister Donald Tusk rejecting the bank’s nominees. Kotecki said the council could still make rate decisions on members’ own analysis even if the management board supplied no documents. The next scheduled policy meeting is November 4, and Kotecki told PAP the priority is avoiding damage to the zloty or an increase in Poland’s risk premium while the fight plays out.
The institutional fight lands at a sensitive moment for policy. The MPC held the reference rate at 3.75% on October 7 for a seventh straight month, even as September consumer inflation reached 4.0% year on year, above the upper limit of the bank’s tolerance band around its 2.5% target. ING’s post-meeting analysis read the statement as mildly dovish on the core-inflation slowdown, while market pricing has begun to reflect possible rate increases in the coming months. Any disruption to the council’s functioning would complicate that decision just as the market starts to price a turn.