WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The Polish president has vetoed a law on elections to the European Union Parliament that would have benefited large political parties and made it harder for small parties to reach a threshold to get seats.

Andrzej Duda said Thursday in announcing the veto that that the legislation would have left "a large number of citizens" without any representation in the European parliament and led to a decline in interest and turnout in European elections.

Under current law, parties much reach a 5 percent threshold to win seats. Duda said the proposed legislation would have raised that to 16.5 percent, allowing the country's two biggest parties to win representation and excluding all others.

He said he was sending the legislation back to parliament for more work.