WARSAW – The European Commission wrongly deducted over €68 million from Poland’s EU funds for failing to halt operations at the Turów coal mine, according to an EU Court of Justice preliminary opinion on Thursday.
Czechia brought a case to the EU Court of Justice in 2021 over environmental and health risks linked to the mine near the Czech border. In May of that year, the court ordered Poland to cease mining immediately. When Poland did not comply, the court imposed a €500,000 daily fine, which ran from 20 September 2021, to 3 February 2022.
However, according to Thursday’s opinion of the Advocate General – whose findings are non-binding though often followed by the court in its final ruling – a 2022 agreement between Poland and Czechia retroactively nullified those interim measures, and therefore the penalties.
Under that bilateral deal, which has been criticised by Czech and German NGOs and deemed illegal by some Czech legal experts, Poland pledged to pay €45 million in compensation and adopt environmental safeguards to limit the mine’s cross-border impact.
“The amicable agreement between the Czech Republic and Poland meant that the interim measures were cancelled retroactively,” wrote Advocate General Juliane Kokott. “Therefore, the Commission wrongly offset the penalty payment against Poland’s claims against the EU budget.”