Page 4 - bne_May 2021_20210601

4 I Companies & Markets bne June 2021
Mining must stop at Turow immediately until the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) reviews the Czechs’ complaint against plans to expand the mine.
Poland says it will not comply with EU court’s order to stop Turow mine
Wojciech Kosc in Warsaw
Poland is in for another major tussle with the EU after the bloc’s top court issued an interim measure on May 21 to stop lignite mining at the Turow mine near the border with Czechia. Poland says it will not comply because of energy security issues.
Mining must stop at Turow immediately until the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) reviews the Czechs’ complaint against plans to expand the mine, as put forward by its operator, Poland’s state-controlled power company PGE.
In early 2020, Poland allowed PGE to keep mining lignite
– which feeds the adjacent Turow power plant, a major installation supplying up to 7% of Polish electricity – until 2026.
In a typical lignite mine-power plant set up, lignite must be fed to the plant on the spot, as it cannot be moved so easily as coal, for example on trains.
The Czechs filed their lawsuit at the CJEU in February, claiming that Poland granted the extension of the mine’s operations without carrying out an environmental impact assessment.
Poland says that the assessment was not necessary. In line with Polish law, if a mining extension is “motivated by rational management of the deposit without extending the
www.bne.eu
scope of the concession”, it does not need an environmental impact assessment.
However, the CJEU said that the law in question may well infringe the EU’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive.
“It cannot be ruled out ... that the Polish legislation infringes the requirements of the EIA Directive, according to which, in substance, the extension of an open-cast mining project must be subject to an environmental impact assessment or, at least, prior verification of the need for such an assessment,” the court said in a statement.
“It cannot be ruled out ... that the Polish legislation infringes the requirements of the EIA Directive, according to which, in substance, the extension of an open-cast mining project must be subject to an environmental impact assessment”