On Sunday, Donald Tusk organized a conference on the future of the European Union.
– From the point of view of EU interests, Nord Stream 2 is a bad project – noted the former president of the European Council, adding that he was resigning in December of this year. As German chancellor, Angela Merkel was helpless in the face of pressure from local businessmen. “I admitted that in one of our conversations,” he said. He also stressed that Germany’s continued willingness to cooperate in the energy field with Russia was Germany’s problem and “one of Merkel’s biggest mistakes.”
– I did my best to make the European Union independent of gas supplies from Russia, including. By establishing the Energy Consortium, that is, the gas purchase mechanism for the community, the former Prime Minister said. However, he noted that many member states are not interested in “creating joint resistance to the construction of Nord Stream 2”. Among the countries that did not mind the project – as he calculated – there were, among others, the Netherlands and Austria-Hungary, the neutrality of which was emphasized by, among others, the Czech Republic.
When asked about the dispute with the Czechs over the mine in Turów, he said the solution would be to build a water source for Czech cities that are currently struggling with the problem of water shortages. “It will be cheaper than the costs that we already have to bear, “- he noted.
Nord Stream 2 is a gas pipeline that runs from Russia to Germany and runs along the bottom of the Baltic Sea. It avoids, among other things, Poland and Belarus, as well as Ukraine. In recent days, the German regulator, the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur), has decided to suspend Nord Stream’s accreditation. As Stanisław Sarin, spokesman for the Polish intelligence coordinator wrote on Twitter, “The German side informed the Russian entity of this decision. It is procedural in nature and does not mean a change in policy regarding – the Russian gas pipeline.”
In February this year. The Czech Republic has filed a complaint with the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) against Poland regarding the Turów lignite mine. They also applied for a temporary order ordering the suspension of mining operations. The complaint was made in connection with the expansion of the mine, which – as Braga claims – threatens the access of the inhabitants of the neighboring communes to the water. They also complain about the noise and dust caused by lignite mining.
In May, CJEU, in response to a request from the Czech Republic, ordered the immediate suspension of coal mining in Turów. The Polish government announced that the mine would continue to operate and began talks with the Czech side. On September 20, the European Court decided that Poland would pay the European Commission a fine of 500,000 PLN. Euros per day for not implementing temporary measures and not stopping the extraction of lignite in the mine.
