Three times a charm? The government will submit the bill once again, but does not intend to negotiate

The government will “soon” submit a draft bill on cryptoassets and will encourage the president and the opposition to support it, Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced in the Sejm on Friday. He stressed that he did not intend to negotiate with the president regarding the preparation of another project regulating this market.

On Friday, the Sejm did not reject President Karol Nawrocki's veto to the act on cryptoassets. Earlier, Prime Minister Donald Tusk presented information on matters related to state security during a closed session.

The Prime Minister told journalists in the Sejm that the issue of the act on crypto-assets is “nasty”; in his opinion, there has been no such situation in Poland since 1989. – We are dealing with very dangerous phenomena, where there is Russian money, where there is the mafia (…). The money from these groups, which were very dangerous for Poland, also went to political promotion, Tusk told journalists.

He added that the bill, which “was intended to curb the possibility of this action, was vetoed by those who are somehow suspiciously close to these matters.” – We will submit this bill anyway. In a moment. I'm not saying that today, but we will continue to persuade the president and the PiS opposition not to do it, because they are doing a very bad thing, said the Prime Minister.

When asked whether the government was ready to negotiate with President Karol Nawrocki to prepare a joint project, he replied that “there was no time.” – We must have this law now to block bad scenarios and to have tools to control this situation. I will appeal to immediately adopt this law after reconsideration without undue delay, declared the head of government.

The presidential office justified Karol Nawrocki's Monday veto by saying that the bill, among others, it allowed the government to disable the websites of cryptocurrency companies with one click, and the rules on domain blocking were opaque and could lead to abuse.

The purpose of the vetoed bill – passed by the Sejm on November 7 this year. – was, among others, implementation of EU regulations, i.e. the MiCA regulation (The Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation). Pursuant to the act, supervision over the crypto-assets market would be exercised by the Polish Financial Supervision Authority, equipped with appropriate supervisory and control tools. Some obligations of issuers of asset-linked tokens and e-money tokens, as well as crypto-asset service providers, have been clarified.

In the event of a violation of the regulations, the Polish Financial Supervision Authority could enter unfair Internet domains used to conduct crypto-asset activities in its register. This would protect customers and the market against such entities. The act was to introduce criminal liability for crimes committed, among others, in connection with the issuance of tokens or the provision of crypto-asset services without prior notification to the Polish Financial Supervision Authority.

The perpetrators of the most serious violations would be threatened with, among others: a fine of up to PLN 10 million. The vetoed regulations also assumed regulation of online currency exchange offices – they were also to be supervised by the Polish Financial Supervision Authority. Pursuant to the act, they would have to maintain individual payment accounts for their clients, which would include, among others: it would protect customers' money and allow them to have it at their disposal at any time. (PAP)

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