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Donald Tusk has signalled a sharp shift towards green energy in Poland and a tougher approach to its state energy company, triggering early tensions within his pro-EU coalition as it awaits taking office this month.
An energy bill proposed by Tusk’s Civic Coalition party this week would make state-controlled oil and gas company Orlen pay for household energy subsidies while slashing restrictions on the building of wind farms, in a sign of a shift away from the energy policies of the outgoing rightwing Law and Justice (PiS) party government.
The proposal has placed early strains on Tusk’s three-way coalition, which was assembled following a parliamentary election on October 15.
Tusk told a conference last month that “moving away from fossil fuels is not something that should be seen as a sacrifice of one’s own interests”.
He argued that Poland’s promotion of green energy could also help “overthrow PiS state-owned companies” that he said had slowed down the energy transition. There are other ways to source “cheap and ecological energy independent of the central authorities”, Tusk added.
The Civic Coalition wants to freeze energy prices for consumers in the first half of next year, a subsidy to be funded by Orlen. The plan has sent Orlen’s share price down 6.6 per cent since it was set out on Wednesday. Orlen, which is Poland’s largest company, went on an acquisition spree under the PiS government.
Tusk hopes to be appointed prime minister around December 13, but has been made to wait for current premier Mateusz Morawiecki of the PiS to first fail in his own bid to retain control. PiS remains the largest grouping in the new parliament but has no path to majority support.
Orlen’s chief executive Daniel Obajtek wrote on Thursday to President Andrzej Duda to ask him to safeguard Orlen as the cornerstone of Poland’s energy security. Obajtek is expected to top the list of senior executives appointed by PiS to be replaced when Tusk takes power.
The draft energy bill also proposes to enable wind turbines to be built as close as 300 metres to a residential area. PiS imposed tough conditions on wind farm construction in 2016, including a minimum distance of 10 times the height of the turbine from a housing area, which generally translates into a distance of 1.5km.
Tusk wants to speed up Poland’s green energy transition and revive the onshore wind sector. The bill also loosens limits on building wind farms close to national parks.
Analysts noted that the draft bill went further than the wind power sector had asked for. Energy consultant Piotr Macaziek said: “It’s extremely surprising that the new government would already propose what look like excessively liberal regulations and it will be very hard for [them to] push through this law, especially when all the coalition partners are not agreeing on it.”
In a country where 70 per cent of electricity is still generated by coal, Tusk also recently called for Poland to implement “as quickly as possible” the building of nuclear power plants already agreed by the PiS government, using US and South Korean technology.
The draft bill has not been backed by one of Tusk’s main coalition partners, the Left party, while on Thursday Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, leader of the agrarian PSL party that is also part of the coalition, distanced his party from the bill.
He promised his farming electorate that the incoming government would avoid land expropriations, which PiS had claimed might happen, and said the minimum construction distance for wind turbines should be 500 metres.
He suggested the bill would undergo changes. “We need to improve here . . . this is the change that is taking place, compared to the PiS government which was infallible and did not listen to comments,” Kosiniak-Kamysz told Polish broadcaster Polsat.
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