Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court overturned a ruling made by a Warsaw Court according to which work on the Turów mine site should have been suspended due to environmental reasons.
Turów is one of the four big lignite mines operating in Poland, owned and operated by state-owned utility Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE). Earlier in 2021, the Czech Republic filed a lawsuit at the EU Court of Justice accusing Poland of failing to comply with EU legislation by granting an extension to the mine’s concession. Then, in 2022, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and his Czech counterpart Petr Fiala signed an agreement putting an end to the dispute over the mine. Following that, Poland undertook to pay 35 million euros to finance current and feature measures to identify, mitigate and prevent the side effects of mining.
Then, in June this year, a Warsaw court ruled the environmental permit for the mine should be suspended, due to the significant damage to the environment. The government has backed the Turów mine case for years, saying that it provides energy security to the country, guaranteeing its sovereignty.
Also, Climate Minister Anna Moskwa welcomed the ruling on Twitter, saying “The fight for Turow and energy security continues!”.
“The decision of the Supreme Administrative Court is very good news, especially for Poles who have the right to expect stability in the energy sector and maintaining energy security based, among others, on the activity of the energy complex in Turów,” commented Wojciech Dąbrowski, President of the Management Board of PGE. “For the inhabitants of the region, it is a guarantee of energy security and the economy of the entire region.”
In the meantime, Czech NGOs like the Together for Water initiative, are worried that the pollution of Czech drinking water will continue. In fact, according to them, the data collected from the period from June 2022 to June 2023, as per the agreement signed between Czechia and Poland, might not be conclusive. Thus, they are asking for more transparency of the data and to assess the impact on groundwater as well.