New Polish president presents “mega-airport” bill on first day in office

Aug 8, 2025 | Business, Politics

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

On his first full day in office, Poland’s new opposition-aligned president, Karol Nawrocki, has presented the first bill that he wants to be considered by parliament. It is intended to ensure the completion of a planned new “mega-airport” and transport hub near Warsaw.

However, the bill has already been criticised by the government official responsible for construction of the planned airport, who called it “a recipe for mismanagement”.

The Central Communication Port (CPK) was a flagship programme of the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, with which Nawrocki is aligned. After taking power from PiS in 2023, the current government expressed reservations about moving forward with the plans, only later to confirm that they will go ahead.

However, PiS has accused the government of dragging its feet on the project and of downscaling its ambitions.

Nawrocki’s office says that his bill, which he presented on Thursday, is intended to “commit the current government to building the Central Transport Hub…without cuts in airport-related investments or drastic reductions in the expansion of the railway network”

“In my bill, I clearly call for a return to sustainable development and for the Central Transport Hub not to be a wheel without spokes, but a wheel with all its spokes intact,’ said Nawrocki, while presenting the bill in Kalisz, a city that is due to be bypassed by new high-speed rail lines.

A key component of CPK is investment in modernisation and construction of railway lines throughout Poland, which were planned to form so-called “spokes” leading to the airport and transport hub.

Nawrocki claimed that the current government is only implementing the project “with great pain”, saying that it first wanted to “eliminate” it entirely before instead “scaling back” and “delaying” it.

In order to prevent further delays, his bill, based on an earlier citizens’ initiative that called for faster completion of the project, specifies deadlines for CPK: it wants all works to be completed by 2031 and for the airport to open in 2032.

However, the government’s plenipotentiary for CPK, Maciej Lasek, criticised the bill, saying that it was clearly “intended to serve political purposes” and, if implemented, was a “recipe for mismanagement” of the project.

Lasek also claimed that “the bypass around Kalisz was their [PiS] idea from the second half of 2023, with 1.4 million zloty spent on analyses and design”. He accused PiS of “twisting the facts” now.

“They should thank us for implementing this project, because otherwise we would be talking about the wasteful spending of 1.4 million zloty”, Lasek told financial news service, Money.pl. “We are doing our job and implementing the CPK project.”

Before taking office, Nawrocki pledged to regularly use his power as president to initiate legislation, including on issues such as cutting taxes as well as the CPK project.

Given that Poland’s government – a broad coalition ranging from left to centre-right – holds a majority in parliament, it is uncertain whether many of the president’s bills will receive approval.

However, they are likely to become a major point of political contention between Nawrocki and his allies in the national-conservative PiS, which is the main opposition party, and the ruling coalition ahead of the next parliamentary elections scheduled for 2027.


Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Prezydent.pl

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