The United Poland, a member of the governing coalition, has recently changed its name to Sovereign Poland and is now blocking the update to Poland’s Energy Strategy Until 2040 due to a dispute over the role of coal. Its leader Zbigniew Ziobro has challenged the social contract with the miners.
The update to the PEP2040 is on hold due to conflict in the government
The social contract on the phase out of coal mining assumes the closure of the last mine in 2049 and is one of the reference points of the PEP2040 update. Sovereign Poland, member of the ruling coalition of the United Right, believes that it is necessary to revise the role of coal in the strategy and change the social contract. BiznesAlert.pl has confirmed with both sides of the dispute that this is the reason why the update that was supposed to have taken place in March is still in the works.
The PEP2040 update provides for a faster transition away from coal, faster development of renewable energy sources and more nuclear power in Poland. Sovereign Poland demands that coal-fired power generation remain longer in use. The update was not the subject of the government session held on May 9.
Wojciech Jakóbik
New sanctions on Friendship return due to Poland and Germany
The northern strand of the Friendship Oil Pipeline may be deprived of the exemption from sanctions on the supply of Russian oil due to an agreement between Poland and Germany as part of the eleventh package of EU sanctions.
The draft of the 11th package of EU sanctions for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine includes, among other things, the removal of the exemption from the embargo on oil supplies via the northern strand of the Friendship Oil pipeline stretching from Russia, through Belarus, to Poland and Germany. The exemption was for deliveries to Germany. The Friendship is used to receive oil billed as Kazakh KEBCO. Poland argued that physically it could still be Russian oil REBCO, and the Russian operator Transneft earns on transit fees paid by KazTransOil.
The EU’s 11th sanctions package aims to tighten the existing restrictions. Poland and the Baltic states are also demanding new ones in the nuclear, gas, oil, banking and diamond sectors. This would involve, among other things, the introduction of sanctions against entities using the fleet of ghost tankers to smuggle Russian oil, about which BiznesAlert.pl wrote previously. Our portal was the first to report on sanctions against the northern strand of the Friendship Oil Pipeline, which have been the subject of talks since autumn 2022.
Wojciech Jakóbik
Poland must invest hundreds of billions of zlotys in new power generation sources
The Ministry of Climate and Environment estimates that the country will have to invest about 726 billion zlotys in new sources of production by 2040. By the end of the current decade, it is expected to allocate 260 billion zlotys for this purpose.
„The Ministry of Climate and Environment estimates that it will be necessary to invest about PLN 726 billion by 2040 in power generation sources, and in the near term, that is, by 2030 – approx. 260 billion PLN,” said Deputy Minister Adam Guibourge-Chetwertyński during a meeting of the committee on energy restructuring.
„We have worked over the last year to update the energy policy on the basis of the assumptions adopted by the Council of Ministers at the beginning of last year, mainly aiming to reduce the role of gas in this transition period, but at the same time we have also estimated the necessary investments until 2040 in the energy sector. In total, by 2040 we estimate approx. PLN 726 billion will have to be invested in new sources of power generation,” explained the deputy minister.
The ministry emphasizes that in the near term, that is, until 2030, about 260 billion zlotys will have to be invested.
ISBnews / Jedrzej Stachura