EU launches legal action against Poland over lack of climate plan

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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.

The European Commission has launched legal action against Poland for failing to submit a final version of its long-term strategy for reducing emissions. Poland is the only member state that has failed to submit the document, the final deadline for which passed well over a year ago.

In a statement on Wednesday, the commission announced that it had referred Poland to the Court of Justice of the European Union for “not having complied yet with its legal obligation”.

Under an EU regulation introduced in 2018, member states are required to submit national strategies for long-term reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as part of the bloc’s aim to reduce emissions at least 55% by 2030 in comparison to 1990 levels and to be climate neutral by 2050.

All member states were given a deadline to submit their plans by the end of June 2024. In November of that year, the commission sent a formal letter of notice to 13 countries, including Poland, urging them to “urgently submit” their plans, after they had failed to meet the deadline.

However, while all other member states have now submitted their final plans, Poland has still not done so, leading the commission to launch infringement proceedings against it.

In July this year, Poland’s climate ministry approved a draft of the plan, which envisages renewables, which last year accounted for 29% of Poland’s energy mix, producing 52% of power by 2030 and 80% by 2040.

However, the plan still needs to be assessed by the newly created energy ministry, which may suggest changes to it. Two weeks ago, the Polish government’s plenipotentiary for strategic energy infrastructure, Wojciech Wrochna, said that Poland’s plan would likely be ready by the end of this year.

Speaking yesterday to news website GreenNews.pl, energy minister Miłosz Motyka confirmed that “we want the [plan] to be adopted by the end of the year” and “we are confident there will be no delays”.

When the current govenment, a coalition ranging from left to centre right led by former European Council President Donald Tusk, came to power in December 2023, it promised to accelerate Poland’s move away from its reliance on coal and towards cleaner forms of energy.

However, since then progress has been limited, amid disagreements within the coalition and strong criticism from the right-wing opposition – and newly elected opposition-aligned President Karol Nawrocki – of the EU’s climate goals.

In one of his first actions after taking office in August, Nawrocki vetoed a government bill that would have made it easier to build onshore wind turbines.

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: Friends of the Earth Europe/Flickr (under CC BY-NC 2.0)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.