Implementation of the So-Called Milestone by the Amendment to the Standing Orders of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland of 26 July 2024

The purpose of the article is to discuss the changes to the Standing Orders of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland made by the amendment of 26 July 2024, which aimed to implement one of the so-called milestones set out in the annex to the Council Implementing Decision. The text analyses the provisions which have introduced new institutions of law, that is open public consultations on bills and regulatory impact assessments of bills, as well as the amendments to the provisions of the Standing Orders of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland on the application of the so-called fast-track procedures in the course of legislative and resolution procedures. In the analysis of the first two of the above-mentioned areas, attention was drawn, among other things, to the innovative nature of the adopted solutions and to their specificity against the background of the similar institutions that were in force in the previous legal situation and were applied, in particular, in the course of the so-called government legislative procedure. As far as the limitations on the so-called fast-track procedures are concerned, it was indicated that these limitations seem relatively small, and only observing how the new provisions are applied in practice will show whether the use of the fast-track procedures has actually decreased. When discussing the amendments to the Standing Orders of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland adopted on 26 July 2024, the authors noted that the European Commission had assessed them as a satisfactory fulfilment of the milestone by Poland.