The wPolityce.pl website says it has obtained information showing that ongoing protests against work to build the canal in Poland’s northeast are in part being financed from German sources as well as by the Warsaw-based Stefan Batory Foundation, endowed by Hungarian-American tycoon George Soros.
The protests, which wPolityce.pl says are supposedly motivated by environmental concerns, have seen rallies staged and complaints sent to the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, of which Poland is part, the website reported.
Opponents of the planned new Polish canal to the Baltic Sea appear to be well organised and operating as part of efficient and influential lobbying groups, wPolityce.pl said, adding that all of this requires money.
The website says it has analysed the ties and funding sources of several of the organisations that are seeking to stop the project in its tracks.
One of the organisations most vehemently opposing the new Polish canal to the Baltic Sea—a project that requires builders to dig through a narrow strip of land known as the Vistula Spit—is called Eko-Unia (Eco-Union), according to wPolityce.pl.
The website says the organisation hit the news in February when some of its members filed a complaint to the European Commission against the strategic Polish project, citing environmental concerns.
According to wPolityce.pl, Eko-Unia operates as part of a wider group known as the Save the Rivers Coalition, which in turn is financed by the Warsaw-based Batory Foundation.
The Save the Rivers Coalition has also been financially supported by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), according to the Polish website.
Meanwhile, the Batory Foundation has provided the Coalition with PLN 100,000 (EUR 23,200, USD 26,000) in funds, wPolityce.pl said.
It asserted that Germany’s Heinrich Böll Foundation, overseen by the government in Berlin and linked to the country’s Greens party, “has also joined the fight” against the Polish canal.
The website insists that the foundation has joined forces with Poland’s oko.press website, which wPolityce.pl said recently published a “one-sided story” attacking the canal project.
The Heinrich Böll Foundation is financed by institutions including Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Ministry of Education and Research of Germany (BMBF), the Polish website reported, citing it said were 2017 report data.
German state institutions have spent tens of millions of euros on the Heinrich Böll Foundation, wPolityce.pl said.
It concluded that German support for those opposing the Polish canal project is cause for concern, especially considering that German organisations have been known to have common interests, and team up for projects, with their Russian counterparts.
Poland’s conservative leader Jarosław Kaczyński said last year that the planned new canal near the Russian border would help enhance his country’s military as well as economic sovereignty.
The country’s ruling conservatives in October announced their country was set to go ahead with work to build the strategic canal to the Baltic Sea, a project they hailed as a boon to the nation’s sovereignty.
Five metres deep, the 1.3 km canal between the Vistula Lagoon and Gdańsk Bay in the Baltic Sea is expected to be built by digging through the Vistula Spit, which separates the bay from the lagoon on Polish territory.
The aim is to allow deep-draught vessels to enter Poland’s Elbląg seaport without passing through the Strait of Baltiysk in Russia's Kaliningrad exclave.
Kaczyński, who heads Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party in September last year said that the plan to build the canal showed that Russia, Poland’s former communist-era overlord, could no longer dictate to Warsaw what to do.
According to government estimates from 2017, the project is expected to cost Poland PLN 880 million (EUR 208 million, USD 246 million) and be completed by 2022.
(gs/pk)
Source: wpolityce.pl