EU Court of Justice upholds Poland's obligation to pay fine for mining at Turów mine

Brussels/Luxembourg, 29 May (CTK correspondent) – The Court of Justice of the European Union today upheld Poland's obligation to pay a fine for illegal mining at the Turów lignite mine from September 2021 to February 2022. In two rulings, the Court confirmed that the European Commission had acted correctly when it deducted the fines previously imposed on Warsaw by the Court from Poland's payments from EU funds.

The Czech Republic filed a lawsuit against Poland at the Court of Justice in February 2021. It argued that the expansion and extension of lignite mining at the Turów mine violated EU law. The Court subsequently ordered Warsaw to halt operations at the mine on the border with Czechia. When Poland ignored the ruling, on 20 September 2021 the Court imposed a fine of half a million euros (about CZK 12.3 million) per day until Poland complied with the request.

„On 3 February 2022, Poland and the Czech Republic concluded an agreement on an amicable settlement, and as a result the case was removed from the Court of Justice's register. Poland did not pay the amounts due in the form of penalties. For this reason, the European Commission informed it in five successive decisions that it would offset the debt against various claims Poland had against the European Union,“ the Court said in a press release.

„The principal amount recovered in this way is 68,500.000 euros for the period from 20 September 2021 to 3 February 2022,“ it added.

Poland asked the Court to annul the offsetting decisions. It relied in particular on the amicable settlement agreement, which, it argued, meant that the financial consequences of the measures ordered by the Court of Justice had been nullified retroactively.

„The General Court considers that the daily penalty accrued from 20 September 2021 until the case was removed from the Court of Justice's register, which took place on 4 February 2022. The removal of the case from the register therefore does not release Poland from its obligation to pay the amount due in penalties. Otherwise, the purpose of the penalty, which is to ensure the effective application of EU law, would not be achieved,“ the Court of Justice of the EU added in its ruling.

„Today's ruling in the case between Poland and the European Commission concerning the failure to pay penalties highlights the fact that Poland has long refused to take responsibility for the damage caused by illegal mining,“ said Petra Pintera, a lawyer at Frank Bold, which has been following the case for a long time.

„The Court of Justice of the EU has shown that European law applies equally to all countries and that Poland must meet its obligation to pay the penalties,“ she added.

tes ank