Morawiecki is heading to Prague, both states have apparently already agreed on Turów
Updates: 02/03/2022 10:02
Released: 03.02.2022, 08:54
Prague / Warsaw – Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki will arrive in Prague today. In the morning, the Office of the Government announced that it would negotiate bilateral cooperation with the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Petr Fiala (ODS). According to unofficial information from ČTK, the prime ministers of both neighboring countries are to sign an agreement on mining conditions at the Polish brown coal mine Turów near the Czech border, which is why Prague is in dispute with Warsaw. The Polish news agency PAP wrote that the two countries had agreed on the Turów mine and approved the Polish government on Wednesday evening.
Morawiecki will meet Fiala one hour before noon in Kramář’s villa, and at 13:00 a press conference is announced at the government office.
Referring to an unofficial source, the PAP agency said that in recent days, Polish and Czech negotiators had been fine-tuning the Turów agreement and reaching an agreement. But he did not give further details. The Onet server reminded that the agreement must be initialed by both governments and that Morawiecki will negotiate with his Czech counterpart in Prague today.
At the end of January, Fiala said that negotiations with Poland on Turów could be reached within a few weeks. Like Morawiecki, with whom he said he was in contact, he wants to reach a compromise agreement acceptable to the Czech Republic, Poland and the Liberec region.
Last year, Poland allowed the expansion of mining, regardless of the Czech side’s objections. For this reason, the Czechia turned to the EU Court of Justice, which last May ordered Poland to suspend work with preliminary measures. The Poles reject this and question the effects on Czech territory.
The Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union today ruled in favor of a Czech lawsuit in the Turów case. According to him, Poland repealed EU law by failing to assess the environmental impact of the mine. The very verdict of the EU judiciary expects in the spring. In the meantime, Poland is being fined for disobeying a court’s preliminary injunction to stop mining, which the European Commission is preparing to deduct from EU subsidies.
According to the draft agreement between the two countries, the Czech Republic pays 50 million euros (approximately 1.22 billion crowns) for damages caused by mining, Poland offered 40 million euros (approximately 980 million crowns). The dispute also persists over the requirement for a ten-year length of judicial supervision. Warsaw was only for two years of supervision.