Lawmakers from Poland’s Law and Justice Party (PiS) have submitted a request to the Supreme Audit Office (NIK) to initiate an inspection at the Port of Gdynia. The move follows a tender settled in September for a six-year contract to operate the ferry terminal in Gdynia, which was awarded to the Swedish company Stena Line. A consortium of Polish ferry operators also took part in the bidding process.
On Monday, during a press conference held outside the Port of Gdynia’s headquarters, PiS MPs Kacper Płażyński and Dorota Arciszewska-Mielewczyk announced that they had received documents from the port concerning the ferry terminal tender. According to them, the offer submitted by the consortium of Polish companies was rejected “based on undocumented speculation, which ultimately led to the selection of an inferior offer and reduced the company’s future revenues.”
They recalled that at the end of September, they had carried out a parliamentary inspection at the port but were denied access to information at that time. Płażyński added that the documents reached the MPs only several days after the inspection. After analyzing them, he concluded: “No matter what offer the competitors of Stena Line submitted, they had no chance of winning, because the result was decided before the tender even began.”
In September, the Port of Gdynia announced that the ferry operator Stena Line had won the tender to use the Public Ferry Terminal for the years 2026–2032.
The competing bidder was a consortium formed by Unity Line Limited and Best Ferries Alliance 1 — a coalition of several Polish ferry operators working together under a shared brand for the purpose of joint projects and tenders.
After the tender’s conclusion, the Port of Gdynia stated that the consortium’s proposal “contained a valuable concept for developing ferry traffic; however, the lack of full compliance with the conditions specified in the tender documentation made further proceedings impossible. The decision does not reflect an assessment of the consortium’s potential or competence.”
According to MP Płażyński’s analysis of the tender documents, the consortium’s offer would have been more advantageous for the Gdynia port.
“The Polish consortium submitted an offer for a gross tonnage capacity of no less than 45 million GT, while Stena Line offered no less than 43 million GT. The consortium guaranteed a minimum of 750,000 passengers, whereas Stena Line guaranteed 700,000,” he said.
Furthermore, Płażyński pointed out that the Polish consortium planned to open two routes — to Ystad and Karlskrona — whereas Stena Line proposed only Karlskrona. Stena Line’s plan foresaw 17.5 port calls per week, while the consortium proposed 23.5 in 2026 and 27.5 from 2027 onward. “You don’t have to be an expert to see which offer is worth more,” the PiS MP argued.
According to the PiS lawmakers, by rejecting the consortium’s offer, the port “exposed itself to financial losses in the coming years.” They emphasized that the rejection “based on an allegation of unfeasibility was not supported by facts but only by the assumptions of a single independent expert — who, at the same time, described the consortium as an entity with long-standing and extensive experience and stated there were no grounds to question its competence.”
Płażyński revealed that the expert in question was Dr. habil. Maciej Matczak, who prepared the “Offer Verification Report,” which served as a basis for the decision to award the tender to Stena Line.
The MPs accused the Port of Gdynia of appointing the expert without any authorization or document from the management board empowering the tender committee to do so. According to them, the expert’s report relied on conjecture rather than factual evidence. As proof, they quoted excerpts from the report:
“Launching a ferry connection to Karlskrona (Karlshamn) within four months may be unfeasible, and the project can be considered insufficiently mature for implementation.”
“Considering that the co-owner of the only currently operating ferry terminal in Karlskrona is a competitor, gaining access to the infrastructure will be difficult.”
The PiS MPs argued that “this is yet another unverifiable opinion implying that the author assumes in advance that Stena Line, in managing the port of Karlskrona, would act in violation of the law.”
At the end of the press conference, the PiS representatives announced that they were filing a formal request to NIK President Mariusz Haładyj to initiate an audit of the Gdynia Seaport Authority.
The decision by the Gdynia Seaport Authority is also being opposed by the Inter-Enterprise Trade Union Organization NSZZ “Solidarność” operating at Polish Steamship Company (Polska Żegluga Morska) in Szczecin. In a statement published on its website, the union called on both the Port of Gdynia Authority and the Polish government “to intervene immediately.”
“This decision is unacceptable to us — people of the sea — and constitutes a flagrant contradiction of all declarations about supporting Polish capital and so-called repolonization. Handing over the most important ferry quay to exclusive control by a foreign entity for years to come is, in effect, the Polish State’s resignation from sovereignty over a key segment of maritime infrastructure,” the unionists stressed in their statement.