Due to the lack of a valid building permit, the Polenergia company has suspended negotiations with banks on financing the investment. Chances are that it will not be provided by Polskie Inwestycje Rozwojowe (PIR), a company that provides financing from the Polish Investments program for long term, profitable infrastructure projects executed in Poland.

The media inquiry on the types of financing models that may possibly be considered by the investor is still to be answered. All this unknowns make the investor’s optimistic claims that the project will be completed highly doubtful.

The lack of financing and the fact that the administrative procedures have not been finalised yet also means that the contract signed with the French giant Alstom, which has been chosen for the main contractor of the investment, does not enter into force. Given that the investor still is unable to provide even an approximate time frame of the construction, the completion of the first block of Elektrownia Północ in 2019 announced in the press is shrouded in uncertainty and remains more a wishful speculation.

The troubles in finding financing are direct consequence of a number of manifest errors by which the documentation is vitiated from the very first stage of planning. The investor still does not have a number of key permits:

• integrated permit, repealed by the Minister of Environment on September 15th 2011 on the application of ClientEarth,
• building permit, repealed on February 14th 2012 by the Regional Administrative Court in Gdańsk on the application of ClientEarth and Eko-Kociewie,
• the permit for the construction of water and sewage main repealed by the General Inspector of Building Control on March 15th 2013.

In February 2014 Poland’s General Director for Environmental Protection (GDOŚ) agreed with environmental and nature protection NGOs ClientEarth Poland, EkoKociewie, Stowarzyszenie Pracownia na rzecz Wszystkich Istot, Greenpeace Polska and WWF Poland and affirmed partial invalidity of the plant’s environmental impact assessment permit (EIA).

Elektrownia Północ has also lost two cases in Wojewódzki Sąd Administracyjny (Voivodeship Administrative Court), which dismissed the complaints made by the investor thus confirming the requirement that the society participate in the proceedings regarding the water main.

The Elektrownia Północ Power Plant planned in the Rajkowy municipality, Pomerania, is the largest new coal-fired Power plant planned in Europe. Its construction and exploitation entails many serious negative socio-environmental impacts, including a grave threat to human health, devastation of local wildlife, irreversible changes to local cultural landscape and a threat to the Teutonic Castle in Malbork, a UNESCO world heritage site.

Fore more information: kontakt@stopep.org