Poland's Supermarkets will remain open - bill killed

A bill that would have required supermarkets in Poland to close on Sunday was killed in committee. The vote was against the bill because committee members belonging the majority Polish Government coalition partner, Law And Justice, abstained from voting which allowed Government opposition parties to kill the bill.

Members of the current Polish Government have for years wanting to close supermarkets in Poland on Sundays. They finally had a chance to do it when the League of Polish Families submitted a bill that would have closed shops above a certain size while allowing small shops to stay open.

It was easy for the Law And Justice Party to support the idea when it was in the opposition. But now that it controls the Government, things look different.

They found, among other things, that were the bill to pass, there would be a loss of at least 70,000 jobs.

Additionally they found that there would be a significant loss of income to the budget.

Atop these the prevailing opinion was that the bill was unconstitutional.

So they let the opposition prevail in the vote.

Shoppers who were interviewed at the supermarkets on Sunday were definite in their views that the markets should stay open. For most of them Sunday was the most convenient day for them to shop.

But the Solidarity Union representative said that they wanted to close the big shops on Sunday to give Sunday back to the people. He declined to comment on why he was not demanding that Sunday be given back to the people who work in the small shops.

Roman Giertych, leader of the League Of Polish Families, promised to start a social movement to have the supermarkets closed.

The Law And Justice Party says that it will submit a bill of it own that requires all shops to shut down on major holidays. Because it treats all shops equally, it should not have problems with constitutionality.

But then there are still questions about what to do with shops in service stations on the highways. Will they be treated equally?

source:masterpage.com.pl