Poland has announced its plans to press ahead with the construction of a waterway through the Vistula Spit, a narrow strip of land that separates a large part of the country's eastern coastline from the Baltic Sea despite concerns raised about the project on environmental grounds by the EU and green groups.
The Vistula Spit is a 55 km long, 2 km wide sandbank that is covered in forest and encloses the Vistula coastal lagoon. The spit and the lagoon is shared between Poland and the neighbouring Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
At present, the only entrance to the lagoon from the Baltic Sea is via a channel that is inside Russian territorial waters. Poland's governing party, the Law and Justice Party, are intensely distrustful of Russia and claim that the waterway is necessary for economic and security reasons.
Polish-Russian border at Vistula
Polish-Russian border on the Vistula Spit
The projects critics have described it as an expensive vanity project that could both worsen EU-Russian relations and become another environmental flashpoint between Warsaw and Brussels following the ruling by an EU court that increasing logging in the Bialowieza region was illegal.
Minister for Maritime Affairs Marek Gróbarczyk defended the 900-million zloty (€209-million) project, saying: “The first and basic reason for the construction is a threat from the east. This is the border of the EU, NATO, and above all Poland, and it cannot really be controlled now because ships can only enter the Vistula lagoon with Russia’s approval.”
However, the EU has stated that Poland must put the brakes on the project and await a decision from the European Commission.
“The commission did not confirm the need for this project. The commission will assess the additional information provided by the Polish authorities and technical discussions will continue. Pending a final commission decision, no work should be undertaken.”
The proposed Vistula canal has also been criticised by environmental groups and local residents.
Jolanta Kwiatkowska from the mayor’s office in Krynica Morska said in a video made public by activists known as the Vistula Spit Camp, “the first thing is the destruction of nature which is already happening. Our hearts bleed when we see forests being chopped down.” This was a reference to the preliminary logging that is already taking place.
Ms Kwiatkowska also highlighted concerns by local residents that the canal would negatively impact the town, which relies heavily on its income from tourism.
Minister Gróbarczyk further defended the project saying that it would not adversely affect the natural environment claiming that criticism against the project was political not environmental.
“The situation in which we found ourselves in this investment is extremely politicised. The substantive issue, the question of the legitimacy of the implementation or the undertaking of actions that have been carried out in the scope of the environmental impact report are of no great importance. It all has a political impact,” he said.
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