Poland’s prime minister has given his assurance that post-pandemic EU recovery funding will come to Poland regardless of the country’s parliamentary election results next year.
Mateusz Morawiecki also said that an expected payout from the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility based on the country’s National Recovery Plan (KPO), which is dependent upon Poland achieving “milestones” related to judicial independence, is not of sufficient size to significantly affect the country’s economic situation.
Originally designed for 2021-27, the KPO is worth EUR 35.4 billion, including EUR 23.9 billion in grants and EUR 11.5 billion in loans. The conditions of its acceptance were set following a dispute between Warsaw and Brussels over judicial reforms the EC considered detrimental to the rule of law.
“The KPO is PLN 120-130 billion, rounding up if we divide that by six years it comes out at PLN 20 billion (EUR 4.22 billion) a year,” Morawiecki explained. “That is not a sum that would affect the economic or financial situation of Poland.”
“Of course, all money is useful, but there are much more important EU funds from the structural, cohesion and agricultural funds than the National Recovery Programme. That is over PLN 550 billion (EUR 116.03 billion),” Morawiecki said, adding that Poland had not yet applied either for those funds or the KPO money.
“But I am convinced that (the funds) will come to us… at the turn of this and next year,” he said, going on to add that this would happen regardless of election results.