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Polish opposition voices concern over strategic canal: report

PR dla Zagranicy
Tomasz Ferenc 20.02.2019 14:00
The Polish opposition has voiced concern over work underway on a strategic canal to Baltic Sea, the wPolityce.pl website has reported.
Photo: wikipediaPhoto: wikipedia

The website said that environmentalists and some opposition Civic Platform (PO) party politicians claim felling trees to dig through the Vistula Spit will lead to an environmental disaster.

Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Agriculture Minister Ilya Shestakov has asked the European Commission to analyse the project, claiming it threatens the ecology of the Vistula lagoon, wPolityce.pl website, added.

The 5-metre deep, 1.3 km-long canal between the Vistula Lagoon and Gdańsk Bay in the Baltic Sea is to be built by digging through the Vistula Spit, which separates the bay from the lagoon on Polish territory. Workers have started to fell trees as part of the work.

The aim is to allow deep-draught vessels to enter Poland’s Elbląg seaport without passing through the Strait of Baltiysk in the Kaliningrad exclave, which belongs to Russia, Poland’s Soviet-era overlord.

According to estimates last year, the project is expected to cost Poland PLN 880 million (EUR 208 million, USD 246 million) and be completed by 2022.

The niezalezna.pl website reported last year that Jarosław Kaczyński, the head of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, said the canal project demonstrates "that the times when the Russians dictated to us what we can and what we cannot do on our territory are over."

Kaczyński added that the canal was a demonstration of Polish sovereignty, niezalezna.pl reported.

Niezalezna.pl said that when asked about accusations by Russia that the Polish canal may be dangerous for environmental reasons, Kaczyński replied: "It is known that they have always been against it".

(tf/pk)

Source: wpolityce.pl

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