EU’s Tusk to be questioned in Polish tax probe

Tusk, who was the prime minister of Poland from 2007 until 2014, is now president of the European Council, a key European Union leadership position.

Marcin Horała, a lawmaker leading the inquiry, told reporters on Thursday that those called to testify would include former Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz.

Horała, an MP for Poland’s ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, also listed former Interior Ministers Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz and Grzegorz Schetyna among those the panel decided to question when it met behind closed doors on Thursday.

Schetyna is now leader of the Civic Platform (PO), Poland’s largest opposition party.

The inquiry by the MPs got under way after the lower house of Poland's parliament in July voted to launch a parliamentary investigation into suspected irregularities.

Horała said at the time that a probe was needed to check former finance ministry officials and others who oversaw the VAT collection system under the Civic Platform-led government, which governed Poland from 2007 to 2015.

Marcin Horała. Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka

The MPs have so far questioned witnesses including former Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Jacek Rostowski, who worked under Tusk from 2007 to 2013.

The special parliamentary commission’s first witness, Witold Modzelewski, one of the architects of Poland’s value-added tax system and deputy finance minister from 1992 to 1996, told the investigators in September that the so-called VAT gap ballooned in Poland between 2007 and 2015, leading to billions of zlotys in losses for public coffers.

Poland lost hundreds of billions in uncollected taxes under its previous Civic Platform-led government, according to a report released by a tax advisory firm run by Modzelewski.

Tusk was in November questioned in Warsaw by a special Polish parliamentary commission probing a notorious pyramid scheme.

(gs/pk)

Source: TVP Info, PAP, IAR