Brussels slams Poland for lack of energy law

Under EU regulations, 15 percent of Poland’s energy is to originate from sustainable sources and the law on renewable energy should have been passed by December last year.

“For this reason, the European Commission has initiated proceedings against Warsaw," Katerina Rybarova, press spokesperson for the European Commissioner for Energy has told the Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily.

In line with an energy-climate package agreed upon in Copenhagen in 2008, Poland’s new green law was to be ready by December 2010, yet a draft bill has not even reached parliament so far, and the matter is not expected to be finalised before the general election in October.

The government has recently made some headway on the issue. On Tuesday this week, the government agreed a National Development Programme for a Low-Carbon Economy, one of the main goals of which is to enhance the share of sustainable power production in the country’s energy mix.

Poland is to set targets for the distribution of energy sources, looking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and set out investment targets within the energy sector.

As the document stipulates, the gradual expansion of sustainable energy production will be accompanied by the creation of new branches of industry fostering green energy. (ab/pg)