New Polish PM's cabinet wins parliament backing

WARSAW - Poland's new Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski has won a confidence vote in his cabinet after promising in his opening speech to parliament to reduce his country's dependence on Russian energy supplies.

Kaczynski, the twin brother of the president, also pledged to put a strong currency and prudent budgets at the heart of his coalition cabinet's policy.

The head of the ruling conservative Law and Justice party replaced fellow party member Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz last week. As widely expected, the support of two junior coalition partners enabled the conservatives to win the vote by a wide margin of 240 to 205 with no abstentions.

"I'm happy. We will now be able to get to work. There are many things to get done in Poland," Kaczynski told reporters after the vote.

Kaczynski said in the speech his government would step up efforts to diversify its sources of oil and gas, long a cause of tension between Warsaw and its communist-era master Russia, which controls most of Poland's supplies.

He said Poland should consider developing nuclear power in another effort to tap alternative sources of energy.

Poland's relations with its biggest neighbours, Germany and Russia, cooled considerably last year when the two countries announced a gas pipeline joint-venture by-passing Poland.

Relations with Berlin were additionally strained in recent weeks after a German daily called the Kaczynski twins "potatoes" and "villains who want to rule the world."

- REUTERS