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Poland’s Turów mine is viewed by its EU neighbours as unwanted evidence of Warsaw’s refusal to abandon polluting coal. But for the country’s rightwing government, it is a source of political pride.
Far from preparing to close the mine, the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) in June held its convention in the mining region of Lower Silesia, within breathing distance of the smoke that billows from the power plant fired by Turów’s lignite, considered one of the dirtiest fossil fuels.
As Poland prepares for a tight general election this autumn, the mine has become a symbol of PiS defiance against EU interventionism. “What is happening around the mine is nothing more than an attack on our sovereignty,” PiS founder Jarosław Kaczyński told party supporters.
Located in the country’s south-west between Germany and the Czech Republic, Turów is an open pit mine whose lignite fuels an adjacent plant that generates about 7 per cent of Poland’s electricity. Turów’s mining concession was due to expire in 2020, but Warsaw introduced a law to extend its life — prompting the Czech Republic to sue in the European Court of Justice.
The mine is so important for Warsaw that it has in effect been paying the EU to keep it open. Poland defied the court’s 2021 interim order for it to stop mining and refused to pay the resulting daily fine of €500,000. In response, the European Commission began deducting the fine from EU funds earmarked for Poland — withholding €68mn in total — while Poland separately paid €45mn to the Czech Republic in compensation for environmental damage and to get Prague to drop its lawsuit.
Brussels has also excluded the region around Turów from EU subsidies for places that transition away from fossil fuel production.
Turów is a sideshow to a wider feud between Brussels and Warsaw over sovereignty, money and rule of law. The Commission has withheld billions of euros in EU pandemic recovery funds in an effort to force Warsaw to guarantee Polish judicial independence; Warsaw has in turn told Brussels to stop interfering with domestic reforms.
PiS delegates met in Lower Silesia both in a show of defiance and with an eye to the upcoming elections: as a swing constituency, its electorate is key to the party’s chances of securing a third term in office.
Turów now employs only about 2,400 miners — down from 6,000 two decades ago — but they have welcomed the government’s support. Taxes paid by the power plant’s operator, state-controlled PGE, fund one-third of the budget of the local municipality of Bogatynia.
“If the government gives the green light for the mine and the preservation of jobs in Turów, it’s incomprehensible that foreign institutions like the EU want to oppose it,” said Piotr Kubiś, a coal miner who chairs the local branch of the Solidarity 80 trade union.
The legal battle over the mine has stretched from Luxembourg to national courts in Warsaw. A Polish court sided in June with environmentalists to stop a planned expansion, only to be overruled a month later by a higher court. Justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro called the initial ruling “shameful.”
As well as pollution concerns, environmentalists blame the mine for using up underground water needed in the surrounding countryside. Citing scientific reports — which the Poles contest — Thomas Zenker, mayor of the German border town of Zittau, warns that mining has exacerbated shifts in ancient tectonic plates.
“You cannot guarantee the safety of buildings on ground that is sinking,” he said, pointing to areas on a map of his town where the ground is six centimetres lower than six years ago. “All the specialists say there is an impact from Turów on our city.”
But Wojciech Dobrołowicz, mayor of Bogatynia, said the war in Ukraine showed the EU needed more homegrown energy. Germany reactivated some coal-fired plants last year to offset spiralling energy prices.
“The Germans and Czechs also have coal power plants, which is why I don’t understand why everybody attacks Turów,” Dobrołowicz said.
Poland has its own environmental grievances: in late July its government complained to the European Commission about thousands of tonnes of waste allegedly dumped by German companies on Polish territory.
Dobrołowicz envisions a future without lignite, when Bogatynia could contribute more to Poland’s wind energy production. Renewables supplied a record quarter of Polish electricity production in May, according to data from think-tank Instrat. But the mayor wants Poland to dictate the pace of change: “Nobody from the EU seems to understand that energy transition needs time in a country that has a lot of coal.”
The fight over Turów comes amid broader tensions between Berlin and Warsaw. As well as demanding German reparations last year for losses inflicted by the Nazis in the second world war, Poland has accused Germany of having strengthened Russian president Vladimir Putin by embracing him as an economic partner until his all-out invasion of Ukraine.
Berlin did not join Prague’s original EU lawsuit against Turów. Zenker put this down to Germany facing a Polish-led backlash against its Nord Stream pipelines to import Russian gas. “My feeling is the German government didn’t want more tensions with Poland,” Zenker said.
For some, the mine has taken on the status of national treasure. Elżbieta Witek, the Polish parliament’s speaker, said during her party’s convention that it should be defended “out of love for Poland”.
But the mine’s few local opponents see the defence of coal — which provides 65 per cent of Polish electricity — as a step backwards.
“PiS is a return to communist beliefs about the state economy, with everything in the hands of politicians in Warsaw who don’t care about neighbouring countries,” said farmer and environmental activist Radek Gawlik.
“I understand people here who worry about their jobs, but I cannot accept the political theatrics of defending coal as being good for Poland.”
