March brought changes to the Act on the Management of State Treasury Agricultural Property, including the possibility of allocating funds obtained from the management of State Treasury Agricultural Property to finance support for renewable energy projects, particularly in agriculture, including the implementation of renewable energy investments on lands owned by the State Treasury.
The provisions of the Act on Foundations and the Act on Associations were also amended, permanently allowing the use of electronic communication during and outside meetings of foundation and association governing bodies. This should contribute to increasing the representativeness of their bodies and reducing their operating costs.
In this month we also saw significant simplifications to the operations of cooperative banks and cooperative savings and credit unions, as the regulations concerning the integrated association of cooperative banks were repealed. The obligation to provide information on loans, cash advances, bank guarantees, and sureties granted to cooperative bank shareholders upon request to the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) and the obligation to store this information was also abolished, while retaining the supervisory authority’s authority to request information and documents based on separate provisions.
New amendments to the regulations governing the functioning of the financial market and the protection of market participants in Poland entered into force too. These amendments result from the need to implement Directive (EU) 2024/1174 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 April 2024, in particular with regard to certain aspects of the minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities, into Polish law.
In mid-March, regulations amending the rules for the flow of tax information with other countries entered into force. This was necessary to implement Council Directive (EU) 2023/2226 of 17 October 2023 amending Directive 2011/16/EU on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation (OJ L 2023/2226 of 24 October 2023, “DAC8”) and the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework and Amendments to the Common Reporting Standard (CAR to CRS) into Polish law.
In March, a significant amendment to the Act on the System of Courts and related acts came into force. It provides for the possibility of employing students of uniform master’s degrees in law who have completed the third year of these studies in common courts, and modifies, to the extent necessary, the provisions concerning other assistant positions, i.e. judge’s assistant and senior judge’s assistant.
Furthermore, amendments were introduced to the Act on the Central Registration and Information on Business and the Entrepreneur Information Point, as well as certain other acts. These amendments, among other things, are intended to facilitate the process of establishing and running a business by sole proprietors; to provide a basis for including information in the Central Registration and Information on Business (CEIDG) about a civil partnership whose partner is an entrepreneur subject to CEIDG registration. Furthermore, they provide for a shift from paper to an exclusively electronic form of submitting applications for CEIDG registration; for the integration of CEIDG systems with other IT systems; and for specifying the scope of data provided by licensing authorities and chambers of crafts. They also allow for the submission of applications to CEIDG for establishing a business via the mObywatel application. Provisions have also been clarified, among other things. in the scope of: succession management, disclosure of data in CEIDG, trustee, information on craft qualifications, grounds for rectifying an entry in CEIDG, making an entry in CEIDG by minors.
This month also saw the adoption of a law on the non-punishment of citizens of the Republic of Poland participating on Ukraine’s side in the armed conflict sparked by the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine. This act pardoned and dismissed crimes and offenses (amnesty) specified in the Criminal Code and the Homeland Defense Act.
Due to the impact of the war in Iran on oil prices, regulations were introduced in March to address this issue in the domestic market. The aim of the amendment is to introduce solutions that serve the country’s fuel security and the security of the Polish economy, and to address the urgent need to incorporate solutions into the national legal system to curb fuel price increases. According to the adopted solutions, the maximum fuel price will be determined according to a specified formula, which includes the average wholesale price of fuels on the domestic market, increased by excise tax, fuel surcharge, a sales margin of PLN 0.30 per liter, and VAT. Selling above the maximum price will be subject to a fine of up to PLN 1 million, and inspections will be carried out by the National Tax Administration.
Finally, some changes have also been introduced to the Act on the National Criminal Register, which are intended to implement the provisions of European Union law into the Polish legal system in order to enable the Republic of Poland to effectively implement the obligations arising from the ECRIS-TCN information system (European Criminal Records Information System for Third Country Nationals, established by Regulation (EU) 2019/816 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019, which contains personal data of convicted third-country nationals and stateless persons and enables the determination of which Member States hold information on previous convictions issued against such persons).
