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Central Europe
November 30, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 13
allowing companies to hire them without work permits for 90 days in areas in areas where the labour crunch is the direst. Businesses say this is a temporary solution as most guest workers move on to Western Europe after a few months in search of higher wages.
The bill submitted to parliament on Monday would extend the period employers may account overtime for the purpose of calculating wages
Poland reveals draft of energy policy until 2040
Wojciech Kosc in Warsaw
Poland is aiming for a gradual reduction of
the role of coal in its energy mix that will be compensated by growth in offshore wind, solar, and nuclear power capacity, according to a draft long-term energy policy revealed by the ministry of energy on November 23.
Nearly 80% of the Polish economy is currently powered by coal-fired power plants, but the country is under pressure to reduce the intensity of its CO2 emissions in line with the EU’s climate policy.
Coal will have a 60% share in Poland’s energy mix in 2030, before falling to around 30% in 2040, according to the policy document. As coal’s importance is planned to diminish – although
at a rate not ambitious enough for advocates of greening Poland’s energy sector – Warsaw plans the introduction of nuclear power to the mix in the 2030s as well as offshore wind power, starting in the late 2020s.
The latter is expected to replace onshore wind power capacity, which, according to the ministry,
and rest days from 12 months to three years. It would allow employers to require workers to be on the job from morning till night for periods of up to four weeks, without a day off, trade union association MaSzSz said.
Opposition parties called the legislation anti- family and anti-life. Parliament will start to debate the legislation on Tuesday.
is politically unviable because of local opposition to wind turbines.
Poland also plans to boost growth in photovoltaic solar power, a sector that has struggled to take off so far.
The cost of changing the energy mix has been estimated at PLN400bn (€93.7bn) by the energy ministry.
Poland is hosting the UN’s climate summit in Katowice this December. The country has been seen as opposing the ambitious climate policy
of the EU in order to protect its huge coal mining industry, which the government says gives Poland energy independence.
That said, the cost of extracting coal has been on the rise while burning it for power is coming with an increased price tag because of growing prices of CO2 emissions in the EU. That has led to increasing imports of coal from Russia, which undermines the independence argument.