Poland’s EU-Backed Government Coalition Moves to Scrap Citizens’ Bill Protecting Children from Online Pornography

Members of the Polish Sejm Committees on Digitization, Innovation and Modern Technologies and on Children and Youth rejected last week a citizens’ bill on the protection of minors from pornographic content on the Internet. The joint meeting of both Committees took place on Wednesday, March 11 at the Sejm of the Republic of Poland. This bill, developed by the committee “Stop the Pornography Drug,” would require online pornographic websites to implement effective age-verification mechanisms for users—so that these websites are inaccessible to people under the age of 18.
The finalized bill was submitted to the Sejm on December 20, 2024, along with 212,000 signatures from Polish citizens who expressed support for the proposal—more than twice the required threshold of 100,000 signatures Throughout 2025, however, work on the project was delayed—only in September 2025 was the project submitted by the Polish Ministry of Development and Technology to the notification procedure required by the European Commission for such acts— through the Technical Regulations Information System (TRIS, notification number: 2025/0545/PL). The four-month suspension period resulting from this procedure ended in January 2026, so the representatives of the citizens’ committee in early February submitted a request for the urgent consideration of the proposal.

Meanwhile, at the March 11 meeting, after the preliminary statements by the representative of the citizens’ committee, Atty. Rafał Dorosiński (a board member of the Ordo Iuris Institute), and by a representative of Donald Tusk’s government, the Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs, Michał Gramatyka (Poland 2050 party), MP Grzegorz Napieralski (from 1995 to 2015 a politician of the Democratic Left Alliance—SLD, the SLD party candidate for president in 2010, and since 2015 associated with groups forming the current Civic Coalition) immediately submitted a motion to halt any discussion and to reject outright the bil signed by 212,000 Poles, while at the same time leveling emotional accusations against its authors. To the surprise of the many representatives of various institutions gathered in the hall, institutions specializing in protecting children from pornography, safeguarding freedom of speech on the Internet, or the freedom to conduct business, the motion won the approval of representatives of the other parties currently forming the governing coalition. As many as 16 lawmakers voted to reject the bill, while only 7 voted for further consideration. The bill will now go to the Sejm’s plenary session—MP Łukasz Osmalak (Poland 2050) has been appointed as its rapporteur.

Opponents of the citizens’ bill argue that—in their opinion—the signatures of 200,000 citizens can be ignored, because in the meantime the government has announced work on a government bill, which also regulates the issue of minors’ access to pornographic content. However, the government bill has sparked far more controversy than the citizens’ bill. Initially—unlike the citizens’ bill—it was to address not only “pornographic content” but also broadly defined “harmful content.” None of these terms, however, was defined in the government’s draft bill, which drew criticism from nearly all of the 17 participants in the public hearing held exactly one year ago by the Ministry of Digital Affairs. Among those taking part in this hearing was also the Ordo Iuris Institute, which also submitted its opinions both with respect to the first version of the draft in March, and to the second version of the draft in October, and also published a comparative analysis of the two bills (the citizens’ bill and the governmental draft bill). Ultimately, in October, references to “harmful content” other than “pornographic content” were removed from the government bill. The second of these concepts is still not clearly defined in the project, however, which constitutes its fundamental flaw.

Without a precise definition of what is and is not “pornographic content,” a court would have to decide this on a case-by-case basis, relying, for example, on expert opinions, which would dramatically delay the implementation of the new system for the protection of minors and would seem grossly at odds with the principle of legal certainty. Meanwhile, the citizens’ bill included such a precise definition from the very beginning. Its definition refers to Article 9(2) of the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime of November 23, 2001, which has also been in force in Poland since June 1, 2015. Previously, it was also referred to by the Twoja Sprawa Association in 2019. The Sejm’s Bureau of Expertise and Regulatory Impact Assessment also expressed approval for such a definition, emphasizing its compliance with EU law in its opinion of February 26, 2025. Nonetheless, Deputy Minister Michał Gramatyka mocked this definition on social media immediately after the committee meeting.

Representatives of the Ordo Iuris Institute—Management Board member, Atty. Rafał Dorosiński and senior analyst, Atty. Nikodem Bernaciak— took part on that same day in a press conference organized by members of the commission, during which they opposed such treatment of a bill signed by over 200,000 Poles and called on lawmakers to reject the committee’s motion. They emphasized the rationale for continuing work on this bill, pointing to the key elements of these regulations that demonstrate its advantage in these areas over the government bill.

“Blocking debate and showing a clear intention to reject a bill signed by 212,000 citizens, when the government failed for over a year to submit its own bill to lawmakers, is a manifestation of the arrogance of those in power. After all, they could also wait for the government bill and consider both bills jointly. That is why we call on the Sejm to continue work on the citizen-initiated bill,” emphasizes Atty. Rafał Dorosiński, representative of the Legislative Initiative Committee “Stop the Pornography Drug.”