Poland’s government has
streamlined legal regulations to facilitate road building. In a parallel
development, Prime Minister Donald Tusk made personnel changes in the Ministry of Infrastructure in another move aimed at giving a boost to
the badly delayed construction of motorways
and expressways in Poland.
Report by Krystyna Kolosowka.
When Poland and Ukraine were
awarded the right to host the Euro 2012 championships, many people,
even those only vaguely interested in football, were enthusiastic –
expecting that road building in Poland will at last take off. Last year,
infrastructure minister Cezary Grabarczyk pledged that Poland’s motorway
network will expand from 699 km to 1065 km – that is by almost 900
km, just in time for Euro 2012. The length of expressways was to increase
at the same time from 317 to 2418 km. It is clear today that this plan
is not likely to be fulfilled. The minister himself admitted that -
‘The program did envisage
the construction of some 3200 km of motor and expressways, but the funds
guaranteed by the government in September 2007
are insufficient to realize it. In this situation, some tasks will take
longer to complete.’
The weekly Newsweek, for example,
forecasts that out of 3000 km of express and motorways planned, only
a half will be built. Jan Jakiel of the SISKOM road watchdog is not
optimistic, either.
He attributes the delays in
the construction of motor and express ways to problems with NATURA 2000
protected sites and to different concepts of road building adopted
by successive cabinets. The government of the Democratic Left Alliance
wanted to build motorways on its own, while the present cabinet of the
Civic Platform favored the idea of private-public partnership. This
idea collapsed a few weeks ago, and the government decided to build
motorways on its own, basing on public funds. But, apart from funds,
stability of the legal framework is crucial for the program to succeed,
says SISKOM’s Jan Jakiel.
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