Warsaw and Prague at odds over open-pit coal mine

The European Court of Justice on Friday issued a temporary injunction requiring Poland to immediately cease brown coal mining in Turów. The Czech Republic had brought the suit before the court because the groundwater level is sinking on the Czech side of the nearby border. What does the dispute mean for Poland and Polish-Czech relations?

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Polityka (PL) /

This is the end

The dispute will seal the fate of the brown coal mine and power plant in Turów, Polityka predicts:

“The Czechs have Poland where they want it: Warsaw must hurry to meet all of their demands, which our country has so far deemed too expensive and unjustified. They will weigh on the Polish budget because, as we know, at the behest of the CEO of the energy company PGE, work is being done to transfer the entire Polish coal energy sector, including Turów, to the state. Coal power will therefore become even more expensive, and the Turów power plant and mine will soon have to be closed.”

Hospodářské noviny (CZ) /

Friends but without really knowing each other

Warsaw and Prague are talking at cross purposes, Hospodářské noviny believes:

“For the Czech Republic this is a regional environmental problem. ... Poland, on the other hand, fears for the stability of its domestic energy system and its already tense relations with the EU. ... This is now leading to the biggest crisis in relations between the two countries in decades. The Turów case illustrates a problem that is typical of Czech-Polish relations in general: cross-border problems are solved from a distance and from a national - or even nationalist - perspective. Despite all the political declarations of friendship, we still don't know each other well enough and can't yet talk about solving problems together.”