President Karol Nawrocki said on Friday that he was responsible for 30,000. people potentially harmed regarding the Zondacrypto exchange is the government of Donald Tusk. I did not regret this veto for a second, he emphasized, referring to the veto of the bill on the crypto-asset market.
– The Polish government had 11 months to implement the European Union MiCA regulation (regulation on the crypto-assets market in the EU – PAP note). They took care of it at the very end. The Prime Minister does not realize that for the entire time that this company, we are talking about Zondacrypto, has been operating, for 11 months the National Tax Administration, the prosecutor's office, and Polish services subordinate to the Polish government could have solved this problem – said President Nawrocki on Channel Zero.
On Friday, the Sejm again did not reject the presidential veto to the act on cryptoassets. This was the second attempt of the Sejm to reject the president's veto to the bill on the crypto-assets market.
The president vetoed the bill for the first time at the beginning of December last year. and during the vote in the same month, the Sejm did not reject the veto. The government then decided to re-submit the same bill to the Sejm, it was passed and then vetoed again by the president in February this year. This Act differed from the previous one only in the maximum fee for the Polish Financial Supervision Authority's supervision over this market.
– I don't regret it for a second and I didn't regret that veto. Responsible for these 30 thousand people who today are in a certain crisis or have a certain problem, Donald Tusk's government is responsible and the Prime Minister knows it perfectly well – said the president.
When asked how Prime Minister Tusk could have handled this matter, Nawrocki replied that first of all – by warning those who invest if the government had “information from the Polish services.” – I want to say this publicly: I received information from the Polish services about what was happening around Zondacrypto after the first veto, so I was cut off from information about what was happening – said the president.
– These are documents that come from the services, so I cannot talk about them publicly, but I received them when I made my first decision. This also shows a certain systematic approach of the Polish government. But what is most important – this law (vetoed bill) would not solve the problem we are talking about today and the Prime Minister and the entire government are aware of this, i.e. it would not counteract this problem – said Nawrocki.
He added that “the government has been responsible for 11 months to take care of those people who have a problem today and the Polish government and Prime Minister Tusk did not do it.” – The act would not regulate it in any way in relation to this specific case, but it was – because now I want to talk about the act – a clear over-regulation of the MiCA regulation – says the president.
– We have a kind of logic in which the government is unable to protect the interests of Polish citizens, therefore it wants to ax the entire cryptocurrency market out of Poland, including those who act honestly and who do not cheat people. This is not a solution to any problem, Nawrocki said.
He stated that both he and Prime Minister Tusk's coalition partners indicated things that should be changed in the act. According to him, the government “is not about regulating this system and giving people guarantees, but about inciting certain political fights.”
– I believe that we should prepare a law that will solve certain problems. The bill that I would sign (…) would never solve these problems. This problem would be solved by the effective action of the Polish government over the last 11 months, repeated Nawrocki.
When asked if he had ever met the president of Zondacrypto, Przemysław Kral, Nawrocki replied that he did not know “this man”. – I have not met, nor have I ever met, any of Mr. Kral's envoys, this matter does not concern me personally at all – said the president.
– I don't think they supported my campaign, I don't have such information, I don't think they supported my campaign – added Nawrocki. The president also assured that he has never invested in cryptocurrencies.
Before the vote on the presidential veto, Prime Minister Tusk said from the Sejm podium that the suffering and drama of several tens of thousands of people were behind the “persistent blocking of the bill” that would enable Poland to prevent situations such as those surrounding the Zondacrypto stock exchange. He added that Zondacrypto's “great career” began in 2022 with a new boss, for money – as stated by the head of government, citing information from the Polish services – from the Russian mafia.
The Prime Minister said that Zondacrypto has become a company that “sponsors political and social events in Poland and promotes very specific political forces” – it was “a strategic sponsor of the famous event, the so-called CPAC in Rzeszów, which promoted President Karol Nawrocki, who participated in this meeting, and the previous president (Andrzej Duda) was also heavily involved in this meeting.”
After an unsuccessful attempt to reject the presidential veto, Finance Minister Andrzej Domański said that the lack of new regulations creates an “El Dorado for fraudsters” and weakens the security of market participants. Prime Minister Tusk said that – according to estimates – as many as 30,000 people may be injured in connection with Zondacrypto's activities and announced that the prosecutor's office, receiving reports from the victims, will take appropriate action in this matter.
A little later, Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek announced that the Regional Prosecutor's Office in Katowice had initiated criminal proceedings against the Zondacrypto cryptocurrency exchange, regarding possible fraud and money laundering. The prosecutor's office then announced that the amount of damage in the Zondacrypto case is currently no less than PLN 350 million and that the victims are notified from all over the country. The investigation is being conducted for “misleading many people as to the possibility of purchasing and storing fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies on the Zondacrypto exchange, thereby leading to unfavorable disposal of property.” (PAP)
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