Polish coalition to discuss crisis this week

WARSAW, Sep 19 (Reuters) Poland's coalition parties will hold crisis talks this week to try to ease tensions over next year's budget and a plan to send more troops to Afghanistan.

Conservative Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski admitted in a newspaper interview today that his Law and Justice party's alliance with smaller leftist and nationalist right-wing partners was in trouble.

''The party chiefs will hold a meeting in the coming days and reflect over the future of the coalition and how to overcome the problems,'' government spokesman Jan Dziedziczak told reporters.

Local government polls take place on Novembet. 12 and leftist leader and Deputy Prime Minister Andrzej Lepper has suggested an early general election as the best way out of the crisis.

Asked whether an early election was possible, Dziedziczak said: ''At this stage we cannot rule out any scenario.'' Lepper has been the most vocal critic of the 2007 budget bill and has demanded more social spending. Last week he stepped up the pressure by saying Poland could not afford costly military commitments such as the Afghan troop deployment.

His party filed a parliamentary motion demanding an immediate withdrawal of 900 Polish soldiers from Iraq and a reversal of the defence ministry's decision to send 1,000 more soldiers as reinforcements for a NATO mission in Afghanistan.

Such a motion would not be binding and Dziedziczak said the government would stick to its commitment.

Lepper accuses the dominant conservatives of reneging on several points in a coalition deal reached in May and plotting to bring forward general elections, not due until 2009.

The conservatives deny those charges and Kaczynski has accused Lepper of disloyalty following media reports he held a secret weekend meeting with Donald Tusk, the head of the biggest opposition party, the centre-right Civic Platform.

''It is a show of unprecedented hypocrisy and cynicism, both by the Platform and the Self-Defence. It looks like Lepper wants early polls and then he wants to rule with Tusk. Good luck!'' Kaczynski said.

Lepper denied such a meeting took place and said his party was keen to find a compromise in this week's talks.

''There is a will to discuss all these issues and come to a conclusion,'' he told reporters in parliament.

REUTERS DKA PM2009