2023-07-18 13:00 update: 2023-07-20, 15:10
Fot. PAP/Maciej Kulczyński
The Supreme Administrative Court (NSA) has annulled the decision of a Warsaw court which earlier suspended an environmental permit for the contentious Turow lignite mine on the Polish-Czech border.
The previous verdict, issued on June 7 by the Provincial Administrative Court in Warsaw, made the continued operation of the mine illegal as Turow did not meet environmental requirements having no valid environmental permit. This sparked an emotional reaction from the government, which vowed to protect the mine and the thousands of jobs involved, calling it an element of the country's energy security.
The NSA upheld complaints by the General Environmental Protection Authority (GDOS), which had issued the permit, PGE GiEK, the mine's owner, and the National Prosecutor's Office, NSA spokesman judge Sylwester Marciniak told PAP on Tuesday.
According to the justification for the NSA's decision, the court of first instance should have taken into account the general public interest and the interests of other parties to the proceedings.
"In this case, the provincial court did not make such an assessment of the plaintiff's applications and arguments of the investor and the state body," Marciniak said.
"The court emphasised there is no doubt that energy security is a constitutional value, as one of the guarantees of the state's independence and the security of citizens," he added.
The case dates back to February 2022, when Warsaw struck a deal with Prague which ended a long-running dispute over the apparently negative impact of Turow on groundwater in the Czech Republic.
However, in November 2022, several non-governmental organisations, including Germany's Frank Bold Foundation and the Czech and German branches of Greenpeace, filed a complaint with the Warsaw court against the GDOS's decision. (PAP)
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