Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has announced that investments from the European Union’s pandemic recovery plan are already being implemented in Poland, despite the country not yet having received the funds.
The European Commission has refused to provide Poland with funding due to an ongoing conflict concerning alterations to the Polish judicial system. Brussels has deemed these changes to be a risk to the rule of law in Poland.
Poland is forging ahead with its investments outlined in the National Recovery Plan (KPO), taking advantage of the multi-billion-euro post-pandemic recovery fund from the European Union. The KPO outlines how Poland will be spending this money. Despite the challenges posed by the ongoing pandemic, the nation is not letting this deter its progress towards this goal.
KPO investments are starting in a number of EU countries, including in Poland,” Morawiecki said at a press conference on Monday. “We’re in a similar place, at a similar stage and as I promised earlier, these investments will not suffer as we have built up the funding through the Polish Development Fund (PFR).”
“Many projects are being carried out, they are being developed and I think some of them will even be concluded this or next year,”
Morawiecki said.
In March, the government spokesman, Piotr Mueller, said that “KPO programmes are being implemented from domestic pre-financing.”
Bartosz Marczuk, Deputy Head of the Polish Development Fund (PFR), announced in late March that PLN 400 million (EUR 87 million) of pre-financing under the National Cohesion Strategy (KPO) has already been paid out. An additional PLN 1 billion (EUR 220 million) is set to be paid out in the near future.
Poland is poised to receive nearly €35 billion from the European Union’s post-pandemic Recovery and Resilience Facility as part of its KPO. Of the total package, €23.9 billion will be in grants and €11.5 billion in loans. However, the country must still meet certain conditions outlined in an agreement with the EU in order to access the funding.