Poland’s new president vetoes bill loosening wind turbine law, freezing energy prices

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Poland’s new president, Karol Nawrocki, has vetoed a bill easing rules for building onshore wind turbines, marking the first time he has exercised that power since taking office earlier this month. The bill also contained a measure to extend the freeze on household electricity prices.

Opposition-backed Nawrocki criticised the government for combining the two issues in a single piece of legislation, calling it “blackmail by the parliamentary majority”. He said he had already presented a separate bill on price freezes that was identical to the one included in the wind turbine bill.

His veto, defended by opposition MPs, was met with criticism from the government, economists and climate activists.

The vetoed bill sought to further dismantle the so-called 10H rule, introduced by the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, of whom Nawrocki is an ally. The rule effectively blocked most onshore wind farms by forbidding their construction where there are buildings within a distance of ten times the height of the turbine.

PiS later eased it to 700 metres, but critics said this was still too restrictive for a country heavily dependent on coal. The new legislation would have reduced the minimum distance to 500 metres.

Lawmakers, however, had also added to the bill a measure extending the household electricity price cap at 500 zloty ($125) per megawatt hour (MWh) until the fourth quarter of 2025. The freeze is currently due to expire at the end of September.

Climate minister Paulina Hennig-Kloska said in June that the government attached the price freeze to the wind turbine bill because parliament lacked time before its summer recess to pass a separate measure. Some commentators suggested the move was an attempt to pressure the president into signing it into law.

Nawrocki confirmed today that he had presented to parliament a standalone bill carrying the electricity freeze forward, using text copied directly from the vetoed government bill.

“This is obviously a matter of freezing electricity prices, which I have been calling for since the beginning of 2025, even as a candidate for president,” he said, explaining that there is ample time for both houses of Poland’s parliament to approve it, as they have sittings planned next month.

If parliament approves his bill at its next sitting, Nawrocki said he would sign it into law on 24 September, before the current freeze expires.

The veto drew swift criticism from the ruling coalition, including Prime Minister Donald Tusk. “Bad faith or terrible incompetence on the part of President Nawrocki. Possibly both. His veto means more expensive electricity for all Poles – today and in the future,” he said.

Magdalena Biejat of The Left (Lewica), a deputy speaker in the Senate, pointed to a recent IBRIS poll showing nearly 56% of Poles supported the wind turbine bill. “Saying that Poles do not want cheap energy from renewable sources is nonsense. Anti-wind farm ideology has won out over facts and common sense,” she wrote on X.

Economists and environmental activists also responded critically. The spokesman for Greenpeace Poland, Marek Józefiak, said that further blocking wind farms would mean higher electricity prices, a decline in the competitiveness of Polish companies and “a deepening loss of Poland’s energy sovereignty”.

“I don’t understand President Karol Nawrocki’s decision to block the development of cheap, green energy, which would increase our competitiveness and make us independent from Putin and his ilk,” said Marcin Piątkowski, an economist at Warsaw’s Koźmiński University, adding that the decision means Poland “will continue to pay” billions of zloty in oil and gas imports.

The president’s move was, however, defended by opposition lawmakers. PiS MP and former deputy agriculture minister Janusz Kowalski thanked Nawrocki for vetoing the bill, which he described as “adopted in the interests of foreign corporations”, a claim his party has frequently made against it.

“Let’s restore common sense to the energy sector – it’s time to return to cheap energy from Polish coal,” he wrote on X. The cost of mining coal in Poland is among the highest in the world, at over 900 zloty ($243) per tonne of coal produced

Meanwhile, PiS MP and former deputy climate minister Małgorzata Golińska claimed on X that “the president’s veto hurt [the government] because it disrupted the deal with the wind turbine lobby”.

During his election campaign, Nawrocki criticised EU climate policy and promised to maintain coal mining, despite its high costs. He also pledged to cut household electricity prices by one-third within his first 100 days and to call a referendum on leaving the EU’s Green Deal, although no member state can withdraw from it by itself.

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: Jędrzej Koralewski/Pexels 

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.