Vistula Spit canal means economic, military sovereignty - party leader
Ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party leader Jarosław Kaczyński said on Wednesday that the planned Vistula Spit canal means economic and military sovereignty for Poland, adding that the port of Elbląg (northern Poland) would achieve its potential due to the canal.
On Tuesday, Kaczyński, Minister of Maritime Economy and Inland Waterways Marek Gróbarczyk and PiS candidate for mayor of Elbląg Jerzy Wilk planted the last marker pole on the site of the planned waterway.
The waterway is to run across the Spit to connect Gdańsk Bay and the Vistula Lagoon, thereby giving Elbląg access to the sea.
In Kaczyński's estimation, the canal means sovereignty.
"In a direct sense, it will be economic (sovereignty - PAP), in a more indirect sense it is sovereignty in all fields, including the one pertaining to the military," the PiS chairman said on local radio on Wednesday. "It will be waterway through which ships will be able to sail, vessels up to 10,000 tonnes displacement (...) that's as much as a destroyer today (...) so large war ships will be able to sail through."
Kaczyński emphasised that the investment "is important in every way, and above all is about us completely ridding ourselves of the situation that has lasted since 1945." "We have a port at Elbląg and we cannot use it because other countries do not agree. That will no longer be the case, it means we'll have to wait a few years. It'll take a while, but I can say that we're on a straight road to that end."
On accusations from Russia that the investment is harmful to the environment, Jarosław Kaczyński was dismissive. "It can be said that quite the opposite, this canal helps flora and fauna in the Vistula Lagoon. Maybe once, ages ago, construction was different and then there were more species of fish including those that are certainly not there now."
Kaczyński asserted that it "is a political action." "Against the backdrop of what the Russians and Germans are doing, the famous Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, it is a pro-ecological undertaking of the highest degree because those are anti-ecological," Kaczyński stated. (PAP)
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