Mateusz Morawiecki made the remark at a meeting in the southern city of Zabrze on Wednesday, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
Earlier this week, the European Union’s executive commission approved a record EUR 5.1 billion in funding for the Silesia region until 2027, as well as more than EUR 2 billion from the bloc’s new Just Transition Fund (JTF), officials said.
The Polish prime minister hailed this as “a great success for Silesia,” saying that the deal took two years to negotiate.
“And this is merely a financial outline of what we’ll be able to accomplish under the Polish flag, and with the support of EU funding,” he added.
Morawiecki told the meeting in Zabrze: “We have focused on creating new jobs and today, there are hundreds of thousands of new jobs in Silesia, in the entire Silesian region.”
He added: “The government seeks to use these EU resources and even bigger state resources to create new jobs.”
'Silesia can be driving force of Polish economy'
Morawiecki stated: “I deeply believe that Silesia can be the driving force of Polish industry and the economy as a whole.”
For that to happen, the region must be modernised and "transform itself in line with the transformation of the economy," he added.
Referring to Silesia’s coal-mining traditions, Morawiecki said his government was determined to continue using coal “for as long as possible,” while at the same time “creating the best possible jobs for the miners, for all local workers, for the future generations, so that people do not leave the region.”
Morawiecki pledged that, if his ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party secured another term in office, he would do everything to ensure Silesia received “bigger than ever grants from the state budget," the state PAP news agency reported.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, bankier.pl, ec.europa.eu