“Fit for 55” is an ambitious package of climate-and-energy policies that aim to cut the bloc’s greenhouse-gas emissions by 55 percent until 2030 compared to 1990 levels. It requires an estimated EUR 500 billion in investment a year, Poland’s PAP news agency reported.
In an interview with state broadcaster TVP Info, Piotr Müller said the EU package was still “subject to massive negotiations” because “some member countries want to make emissions cuts in agriculture, while others are talking fossil fuels, transport, housing or heat engineering."
“For our part, we are creating a coalition of countries which oppose certain provisions that threaten to shift the burden of energy transition to the less well-off,” Müller said.
He argued that multinational corporations "which do not pay taxes in the EU" should "bear these costs" instead of "poor and middle-income citizens."
Müller's words came after Polish Deputy Prime Minister and State Assets Minister Jacek Sasin told parliament last week that Warsaw would “take all manner of measures in Brussels and domestically to shield Poles from the effects of the flawed policies served up by the European Commission,” the executive arm of the 27-nation bloc.
“We will do everything to make sure that the 'Fit for 55' package is not implemented,” Sasin said at the time, as quoted by the PAP news agency.
Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of Poland's governing conservatives, said in November that the country was working to secure energy from eco-friendly sources, but the process would require time.
He told public broadcaster Polish Radio that energy transition was more challenging for his country than for other EU members and urged Brussels "not to set an overly fast tempo" of transformation.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP