Poland defies Brussels over coal mine
Poland has said that it will “defy Brussels by continuing to operate a coal mine near the Czech border despite facing fines of €500,000 a day”, says Louis Ashworth in The Daily Telegraph. The “hefty fine” was imposed by the European Court of Justice this week after Poland repeatedly ignored a temporary ruling to shut the mine down, following complaints from the Czech Republic that the mine “harmed the environment and drained water from nearby Czech villages”. Warsaw argues that the mine is “essential to the operations of a nearby power station that produces about 7% of Poland’s energy”.
The mine isn’t the only area of growing contention between Poland and Brussels, says Sam Fleming and Henry Foy in the Financial Times. The European Commission is preparing to wield powers “linking billions of euros of funds to human rights standards in member states”. Poland has been allocated up to €121bn of EU funding over the next six years, but the commission is now required to check that recipients are complying with the EU’s charter of fundamental rights. Some EU members may argue that funds should not be released to Poland, as well as Hungary, due to “breaches of EU values”.
These disputes don’t seem to be turning Poles away from the EU: polls suggest that the public remains firmly pro-European with “over two-thirds seeing EU membership as a positive for the country”, says William Nattrass in The Spectator. Still, Brussels can’t be complacent. Warsaw’s “confrontational statements” suggests “a real debate over Poland’s EU membership is slowly emerging”, with unmistakeable echoes of Brexit.