Elections 2023. Law and Justice investments that may come into question

The National Electoral Commission reported on Tuesday that data from 100 percent of voting precincts had been counted. According to the official results of the Sejm elections, Law and Justice won 35.38 percent. votes. The Civic Coalition received support of 30.70 percent. Third Droga was also on the podium – 14.40%. Fourth place was taken by Nowa Lewica – 8.61%, followed by Konfederacja – 7.16%.

Parliamentary elections 2023. Coverage on tvn24.pl >>>

This means that the democratic opposition has a chance to win the majority of seats in the new term of office of the Sejm and thus create a common government. This situation may mean that the large investments announced by PiS will be questionable.

One of the investments whose fate will be uncertain in the event of a change of government is the Central Communication Port, a planned transfer hub between Warsaw and Łódź, which is to integrate air, rail and road transport.

In July this year The Regional Director for Environmental Protection in Warsaw issued an environmental decision for the construction of the airport and the CPK railway junction. CPK informed in mid-September that demolitions have been ongoing on the investment site for several months, and since last year, drilling and geological probing have also been underway for design and construction purposes, covering a total of several hundred locations.

The purchase of real estate developed on the CPK construction site is also in progress. An application for a location decision was announced to be submitted to the Masovian Voivode in the fall.

According to the announcement of the CPK company, the first stage of the airport, i.e two parallel runways and infrastructure to handle 40 million passengers, is scheduled to be launched in 2028. The CPK is to be launched in five years, together with a railway junction and a section of the Warsaw – Łódź High Speed ​​Railway. The rest of CPK’s railway investments are planned until the middle of the next decade.

Preparations are also underway in Poland to build the first nuclear power plant. The General Director for Environmental Protection has already issued an environmental decision for the construction and operation of the first nuclear power plant in Poland.

At the end of September this year. Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe (PEJ) signed an agreement with a consortium of American companies Westinghouse and Bechtel to design the first nuclear power plant in our country as part of the government’s nuclear energy program. The duration of the contract is 18 months. It will result in the creation of over 400 reports and studies. The agreement also provides for the design of supply chains, support for the investment process, and preparation of documentation for a building permit.

The preferred location for a nuclear power plant is Lubiatowo-Kopalino in the Choczewo commune in the Wejherowo district in the Pomeranian Voivodeship. According to the schedule, construction will begin in 2026, and the first unit will be launched in 2033.

At the same time, PiS planned to build a second nuclear power plant in Poland in cooperation with the Korean company KHNP. According to the plans of the current government, the power plant will be built in 2035 in the Pątnów-Konin region in Greater Poland.

There are more planned investments in the energy sector. Just before the parliamentary elections, the state-owned company Gaz-System signed agreements with the Port of Gdańsk and the Maritime Office in Gdynia regarding cooperation in the construction of a floating FSRU LNG terminal in the Bay of Gdańsk.

The government pointed out that this is a strategic investment for Poland’s security, which is intended to contribute to the diversification of sources of natural gas supplies to Poland. According to the announcements, the floating terminal is to secure over 30%. domestic demand for raw materials.

The FSRU terminal together with the transmission infrastructure will be located within the administrative boundaries of the Port of Gdansk. The first loads are expected to arrive in 2028.

One of PiS’s flagship projects remains to be completed, i.e. “Construction of a waterway connecting the Vistula Lagoon with the Bay of Gdańsk”. In September 2022, the shipping channel through the Vistula Spit was opened. In recent months, we have also completed, among others: deepening the waterway in the Lagoon and installing navigation markings.

However, there is an ongoing dispute between the PiS government and the local government of Elbląg as to who is to deepen the 800 meters of the waterway on the river, ending directly in the Elbląg port. The local government of Elbląg and the company managing the port believe that the disputed section should be deepened by the State Treasury and the investor – the Maritime Office in Gdynia. The government and the Maritime Office in Gdynia indicate that this is the task of the port management, which is currently a municipal company.

A few months ago, the ministries of infrastructure and state assets turned to the local government of Elbląg with a proposal to recapitalize the municipal company managing the port. The ministries wanted to transfer up to PLN 100 million – in exchange for a majority stake in the company – and thus subsidize the necessary development investments in the port.

Once all the work is completed, the shipping canal will allow vessels with a draft of up to 4.5 meters, a length of up to 100 meters and a width of up to 20 meters to flow from the Bay of Gdańsk to the Vistula Lagoon. The investment cost was estimated at PLN 2 billion. All stages of the investment should be completed by the end of 2024.

PiS presented the idea of ​​​​creating a Polish electric car, Izera. The factory of the first Polish electric car in Jaworzno is currently only a visualization. The Supreme Audit Office wrote about the delays and the risk to public money in a report published in September.

ElectroMobility Poland (EMP) was established in October 2016 and was an initiative of four Polish energy companies: PGE, Energa, Enea and Tauron, which each acquired 25 percent. share capital. At the end of July 2021, the State Treasury signed an investment agreement with ElectroMobility Poland regarding the acquisition of new EMP shares worth PLN 250 million. “The signing of the agreement and recapitalization of EMP enables the implementation of the next stage of development of the project of the Polish brand of electric cars. The existing shareholders of the company remain minority shareholders with shares of 4.325% each, the share of the State Treasury is 82.70%.” – the company reported then.

Prototypes of Polish electric cars were presented in July 2020. The director of technical development of the ElectroMobility Poland product, Łukasz Maliczenko, explained then that the Izera would roll off the production line in the third quarter of 2023. Previously, at the turn of the second and third quarter of 2021, a factory and a production line were to be built.

According to the latest announcements, the factory is to be launched at the beginning of 2024, and the production of the Polish electric vehicle is scheduled to start in December 2025. Sales are scheduled to start in 2026.

PiS also announced the construction of new grain terminals in Gdańsk and Świnoujście. As in the case of the LNG terminal, a few days before the parliamentary elections, the Agricultural and Food Investment Company, owned by the National Center for Agricultural Support, signed an agreement with the Port of Gdańsk to build grain port infrastructure.

A letter of intent regarding the creation of the Agro Port Terminal at OT Port Świnoujście was also concluded with the management of the Szczecin Świnoujście Seaports.

The main purpose of creating new terminals was to improve grain transport, including: from Ukraine.

In recent days, the topic of building a barrage on the Vistula River near the town of Siarzewo in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship has also returned. The discussion about a new dam has been going on since the late 1990s.

At the last meeting before the parliamentary elections, the government adopted a resolution on the establishment of a multi-year program called “Development of the Lower Vistula”. The document assumes financing the construction of a new dam downstream of Włocławek in Siarzewo. The government informed that “the investment will provide flood protection for approximately 100,000 inhabitants, 13,000 residential buildings, 726 social buildings and 183 historic buildings. This will avoid possible flood losses estimated at PLN 9.5 billion.”

The investment, which is expected to cost over PLN 7.5 billion, is opposed by environmentalists. “The investment will drain taxpayers’ pockets, destroy the river ecosystem, eliminate the chance for the return of migratory fish and violate European directives, exposing Poland to another conflict with Brussels,” emphasized WWF Poland.

According to current plans, a gas power plant with a capacity of 560 MW is also to be built in Poland. Orlen is responsible for the investment. In May this year The foundation stone of the power plant was laid in Grudziądz, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship. The contract for the construction of the unit was signed in May 2022.

Orlen informed in May that piling, reinforcement and pouring of foundation slabs are currently being carried out at the construction site. “The total advancement of all works is estimated at nearly 20 percent, with design work at approximately 70 percent. The installation of the key equipment of the power plant, including the gas and steam turbines and the generator, is scheduled for the first half of 2024,” we read in the release. .

As announced, the power plant will be commissioned in 2025.