A German environmental organisation has filed a legal challenge against the decision to grant environmental approval for a deepwater shipping terminal that Poland planned to build in Świnojuście, near its border with Germany.
The organisation, Lebensraum Vorpommern, which described itself as a “citizens’ initiative”, on March 27 demanded the immediate suspension of the project’s environmental impact assessment that was approved in February.
The legal challenge was slammed by politicians aligned with Poland’s Conservative (PiS) party’s opposition to the centre-left government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The Świnojuście project was launched under his administration but opponents to the environment group’s challenge called it a stalking horse for German economic interests.
“Another German organisation is trying to destabilise a Polish investment project that builds up competition for German economic entities,” said Stanisław Żaryn, an adviser to Poland’s PiS-aligned President Andrzej Duda.
Paweł Usiądek, a spokesman for the right-wing Confederation party, also criticised the legal challenge, sarcastically commenting: “Thank goodness that German power stations and ports do not harm the environment.”
The deepwater container terminal in Świnoujście was scheduled for construction by 2029 and expected to allow 400 metre ships access to the port with a target handling capacity of 2 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit: the size of a standard shipping container) per year. That would almost double Poland’s cargo handling capacity and likely become a potential rival to the German container port in Hamburg.
Lebensraum Vorpommern was backed by the Świnoujście neighbouring German municipality of Heringsdorf that has contended Poland had failed to assess the cross-border environmental impact. It has consistently opposed the planned terminal, arguing its location within a protected nature reserve and its role in accommodating eight gas extraction platforms “will lead to an environmental catastrophe” for the Pomeranian Bay and the protected island of the Wolin Baltic Sea coast.
Heringsdorf also warned that the port’s terminal could result in “serious accidents involving oil and LNG tankers and towers producing toxic mixtures of gas and oil turning the entire Pomeranian Bay into a cesspool”.
Germany has also used environmental concerns to oppose plans for making the river Oder, which runs along the Polish-German border, navigable to container ships, a measure that would introduce more competition for German cargo carriers.
Poland’s western neighbour has also opposed its nuclear power stations programme on environmental grounds and has consistently argued against any European Union funding for Polish nuclear energy ambitions.
