During a press conference held in Rzeszow immediately after a Sunday (29 January) wafers meeting of members and supporters of Law and Justice party from Podkarpacie, MPs criticized the effects of government policies in many areas.

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Deputy Speaker of the Sejm, Marek Kuchcinski, He accused the government of favouring the strongest voivodships by concentrating Poland's development in major metropolitan centers, at the expense of less developed voivodships from the south-eastern and eastern parts of Poland. Another objection concerned forcing local self-governments - through their underfunding from the state budget - to close schools. On a national scale, this threatens about a thousand schools, and in Podkarpacie a few hundred. Similar effects apply to the health service, because the government practically forces local governments to privatize hospitals subordinate to them. As a result, "the development of Podkarpacie is weakening, which is not our agreement. Podkarpacie should be treated equally to big centers. We will do everything to restore the policy of sustainable development of the country". - said Marshal Kuchciński.

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Member Stanisław Ożóg presented a list of 12 amendments concerning Podkarpacie proposed during the budget debate by Law and Justice MPs from our region. The Law and Justice MPs also tabled a number of so-called systemic amendments, including one to increase education subsidies for local governments in Podkarpacie by PLN 500 million. This amendment, as MP Ożóg stated: "was dispassionately rejected by the votes of the Civic Platform and the PSL".

A similar fate was shared by the amendment on reserving funds (PLN 153 million) in the state budget for salary increases for all uniformed services, because, as MP Ożóg stated: "We do not accept that the police and the army are treated better in comparison with other uniformed services".

Mr. Ożóg also commented on the recently announced optimistic information that the Gross Domestic Product grew by 4.3 per cent last year. As the MP noted, the government, while boasting about this high figure, failed to add that this growth was achieved mainly due to investments by local governments and small and medium business. However, at this moment, when the government imposes a financial muzzle on local governments, they will no longer be able to absorb those funds that are still in this financial perspective. According to MP Ożog: "This government has nothing to boast about, because it is leading the country towards economic stagnation and even recession."

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Among the questions from journalists was one addressed to MP Joachim Brudzinski: , "You said that young people, especially students, are now opening their eyes. Are you guys not afraid of the threat from the new parties?"

J. Brudzinski: We are not afraid, because if we were afraid of all those things that have been predicted for us since we came into being, we would not be involved in politics. For several months we have been observing that Law and Justice is growing in strength not only in Podkarpacie, but also nationwide. And we have been observing such a tendency that what was tried to be successfully stuck to us in the times when we ruled, when they tried to make us a "disgusting" party, today it is "disgusting" to admit that one voted for the Civic Platform. Today, it would be hard to find a young person, a student, who would admit that they voted for the Civic Platform, because it so deceived young people, and not only young people, but everyone. I will remind you of just one statement made by Donald Tusk during our time in government. He threatened that if Law and Justice continued to rule, petrol would cost 5 PLN. Well, how much is petrol now, when the Civic Platform is in power?"

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Member of Parliament Józefina Hrynkiewicz She accused the Finance Minister of taking the Labor Fund, which is 93 percent funded by employers' contributions and should be used primarily to support active forms of employment for the unemployed. As Prof. Hrynkiewicz stated: , "By taking this money, the Minister of Finance is using it for purposes known only to himself. This is called "to deposit", from which he will never return it. He is breaking the law here, because according to the law, the Labour Fund is primarily the competence of the Minister of Labour. Moreover, by doing so, it condemns young people to economic emigration. And this is very sad, because Poland is becoming a reservoir of cheap labour for the highly developed countries of the European Union and the West. It is worth reminding that over one million one hundred and forty thousand people have already permanently emigrated from Poland. Unfortunately, Podkarpacie is one of the regions from which most young people leave Poland in search of work and a better life. This is why we are going to raise this issue. We will ask both the employers and the workers' unions to double the Labour Fund, so that it will be spent on various forms of supporting the unemployed, and above all the young people."

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Tomasz Poręba, Member of the European Parliament (PiS), referred in his speech to the recently finished Polish presidency in the Council of the European Union. He also spoke of missed opportunities for the development of Podkarpacie region by the ruling coalition. The MEP accused the foreign ministers, as well as Prime Minister Donald Tusk, of rejecting the Law and Justice party's proposal to make the issue of the Carpathian strategy one of the Polish presidency's priorities. During its six-month presidency, Poland could have convinced EU countries to accept the development programme for the Carpathian macro-region, which includes the southern and south-eastern areas of our country (including Podkarpacie).

This omission is all the more regrettable, given that a much smaller country like Hungary managed to implement the Danube Strategy (a programme for the development of Danube countries) during its presidency. Prior to that, Sweden implemented the Baltic Strategy, and France the Mediterranean Strategy. The loss is all the greater because the Carpathian macro-region is a fairly densely populated area, but at the same time lacks any individual EU operational programme to finance its development.

Poręba also accused the Polish government of failing to make efforts during the Polish presidency to eliminate the huge disparity in payments to Polish farmers. This was another Law and Justice proposal that Prime Minister Donald Tusk rejected. Poręba is convinced that such rejection of issues important for Polish interests is part of the logic of the Civic Platform. This logic boils down to not raising any difficult issues in the forum of the European Union, even though they are important for Poland.

Tomasz Poręba also paid attention to a local matter from Podkarpacie, which was the rejection by the coalition majority in Sejm of a budget amendment submitted by Law and Justice party concerning financing of the modernization of the railroad line Debica-Ocice. This line connects two economic zones (Tarnobrzeg and Mielec), Mielec airport and big cities (Tarnobrzeg, Debica, Mielec). A feasibility study has already been carried out using local funds. Based on this study, MEP Poręba assured, that if this amendment was included, the modernization of this line would certainly boost the development of the northern part of Podkarpackie voivodeship. Unfortunately, the Civic Platform MPs ostentatiously rejected this amendment. I find it particularly regrettable that Mrs Skowrońska from Mielec, an important member of the Civic Platform, also voted against this amendment. Once again, the Civic Platform has shown itself to be not at all civic-minded, but acting according to its own political goals, which do not take into account these vital local matters," said Poręba.

Journalists' question to MEP Poreba: , "If the parliamentary majority in Poland supports the ACTA agreement signed by the government, is there any chance that the European Parliament will reject it?"

T. Poreba: ,,This is a very important question, but before I answer it, one correction. At the beginning, the Polish government tried to shift the responsibility for signing or voting on ACTA onto the European Parliament, including Law and Justice MEPs. This is extreme manipulation and untrue, because the European Parliament will only deal with ACTA from February this year. Three European Parliament committees will work on it, and then - perhaps before the vacations, or perhaps only after the vacations - the vote on ACTA will take place. In short, the European Parliament has not yet taken any binding decisions on ACTA, for or against. There was only a resolution voted on in November 2010, which only talked about the areas of negotiations on the agreement, described them, but was not the position of the Parliament. So the position of the European Parliament is still ahead of us. The Law and Justice MEPs will vote against ACTA. We believe that this agreement verges on surveillance and censorship on the Internet. It contains provisions that absolutely harm freedom of speech on the Internet. The Law and Justice party will always stand against this kind of solutions. (...) Poland did not have to sign this agreement. According to the 36th point of the ACTA agreement, we had until 31 March 2013 to sign. We could have spent this time on public consultations, on informing the public, on analyzing the provisions of the agreement point by point. The government did not do this. (...) Apart from Poland, only a few European countries have signed this agreement, some have not done so at all, and some are waiting until 2013 to analyze it very well. Again, the government of the Civic Platform came out ahead, again it rushed, again it disregarded Polish public opinion, again it disregarded Poles.