Czech-Polish dispute over lignite in Turów: no agreement in sight

The ECJ has ordered a stop of lignite mining in Turów until the objections of the Czechs have been clarified.

The Polish owner does not adhere to it.

The argument continues.

Mining in the triangle between Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland has a long tradition.

Lignite has been mined in the region since the middle of the 18th century.

The industrial opencast mining started around the beginning of the last century.

In 1911, the forerunner of today's power station, the Hirschfelde lignite power station, was built.

Immediately after the Second World War, mostly German workers were still working there.

It was only over time that the Soviet occupying power recruited the workforce from immigrated Polish citizens, who were often driven from their former homes in eastern Poland by the Soviets.

Turów Kombinat: once the largest mining investment in Europe

Construction of a new power plant then began in the late 1950s when the area was merged into the Turów Combine.

At that time it was the largest mining investment in all of Europe.

A power plant with an output of 1200 MW was chosen.

The building project with a total of seven blocks was completed in 1965.

In 1971 the tenth block was completed, increasing the output to a total of 2000 MW.

At that time, 10,000 people were employed in the power plant and in the nearby coal mining area.

Turów peaked in annual electricity production in 1976 with just over 14 GWh.

Turów: Controversial approval for the new power plant

Extensive modernization work was carried out in the 1990s. Despite these expensive measures and a few subsequent incidents that resulted in production restrictions, the closure of the plant was out of the question, mainly because the lignite deposits at this point are considered to be particularly abundant.

The owner of the power plant, PGE (Polska Grupa Energetyczna), completed the newest units at the end of 2020.

The construction costs were over a billion euros.

The power plant contributes around 8 percent to the electricity supply in Poland *.

In 2020, PGE received a permit until 2026 and the concession for lignite mining.

For the very short-term issue of the permit, a controversial expedited procedure was used that did not require the preparation of an environmental report.

It is precisely this procedure that is objected to by the plaintiffs and the ECJ.

Conflict between Poland and the Czech Republic: Daily demands of five million euros

The planned open-cast mining area will in future expand further towards the Czech border and reach a depth of 330 meters. It then also means that coal mining could continue until 2044. The Polish energy expert Bartłomiej Sawicki assumes that in a few years the coal mines will be within a few hundred meters of the Czech border. It should then only be 1200 meters to the first buildings on the Czech side.

The Czech Republic * had criticized the decision of 2020 several times and finally filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

With the relocation of the coal area, the country fears a drop in the water table in several towns on the Czech side.

On May 20, the ECJ ordered the mining to be stopped for the time being in order to be able to examine the lawsuit in the meantime.

The PGE does not adhere to the order of the ECJ.

The Czechs are demanding five million euros a day because the PGE has not complied with the court's decision.

The Czech-Polish talks that have been held several times since then have not led to any result.

Both sides exploit the conflict domestically.

Dispute between Poland and the Czech Republic: "The end of the talks is not in sight"

“The talks have lasted almost two months and, despite the progress made on the details of the framework agreement, the end of these talks is not in sight.

It can therefore be considered that, given the political background, these talks will not end until autumn this year after the parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic.

The old government does not want to make any controversial social decisions now and it will wait with the result of the negotiations only after the elections, ”assumes Sawicki.

The Polish side points out that in the run-up to the concession decision, both the German and the Czech side participating in the consultations approved the agreements.

The minutes of these agreements would prove that.

Approval was then granted on this basis.

Sawicki points out that in the course of 2020 and early 2021 it was foreseeable that the Czech Republic would not agree to several points of the agreements.

In February 2021 there were still bilateral discussions on this topic.

Accordingly, the Polish side should have responded to the demands made by the Czechs at the time.

This involved building a protective device against coal dust for the border towns, compensation for any changes in the groundwater level and a joint environmental fund.

Most of the responsibility for the fiasco of the February negotiations lies with the Polish side.

Poland and the Czech Republic in dispute: the water problem

On the Czech side, it is feared that the groundwater level in the direct vicinity of the coal group of the PGE will continue to fall *. According to Czech sources, the water table has dropped by almost 9 meters over the past 50 years. PGE contradicts the arguments of the Czech Republic and points to the possible effects of the local gravel pit, which is located in the immediate vicinity of the residential buildings in question.

According to the 2020 permit, PGE was required to monitor the water level. The measuring devices are located on the Czech, German and Polish sides. Due to the wet winter 2020/21 and the rainy spring, the values ​​on the Polish side rose sharply. This effect in the Czech Republic should have been similar. PGE complains that the Czechs would not disclose the results on their website. In 2019, the mining group PGE suggested using a method that had already been tried and tested in Germany. This method could reliably record the changes in the groundwater and prevent the undesired runoff of groundwater by inserting a synthetically produced intermediate layer into the soil. But the partners cannot agree on such technical questions either.

(Aleksandra Fedorska) * Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.