Poland pressed to change recovery plan as EU funding at stake

A total of 43 out of 56 investments under the Polish recovery plan may not be implemented before the end of August 2026, which would result in them not being financed with EU funds, according to an analysis by business consultancy CRIDO.

Many projects included in the country’s recovery plan have not even been started, meaning there is no chance of them being completed by the deadline of 31 August 2026.

“Then, Poland will not receive EU refinancing (for those investments) since the condition for the payments is the completion of an investment,” Łukasz Kościjańczuk of CRIDO told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

According to CRIDO’s analysis, 43 of the 56 investments included in the recovery plan are at risk of not being completed or being removed from the plan.

“Two years have been lost,” Kościjańczuk added.

Due to the European Commission’s concerns about the rule of law in Poland under the previous nationalist Law and Justice (PiS, ECR) government, recovery and cohesion funds for Poland have so far been frozen, causing a delay in the plan’s implementation.

Last Friday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced in Warsaw that Brussels would release €137 billion of Poland’s allocation from the EU’s Next Generation Recovery Fund and Cohesion Fund.

The Commission’s decision was in response to reforms, mainly in the judicial system, implemented by the incumbent pro-EU government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, which aimed to restore the rule of law and democratic order in Poland.

The Polish National Recovery Plan (KPO) includes 56 investments and 55 reforms to strengthen the Polish economy following the COVID-19 pandemic. The total EU allocation to Poland for the plan’s implementation is €59.8 billion, of which €25.27 billion is in the form of grants and €34.54 billion is in the form of loans.

Most affected by the situation is component D of the plan, which concerns health care. In this component, 98% of the investments are at risk. “Their total cost amounts to 19.3 billion zlotys (€4.5 billion),” Kościjańczuk told PAP.

He believes the plan needs to be revised to include half of the investments, though the process of preparing the revision and getting the changes approved by Brussels could take up to several months.

The revision proposal is currently being prepared by Poland’s Ministry of Funds and Regional Policy and should be completed and submitted to Prime Minister Donald Tusk before the end of the month, said Minister Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz.

“There will be a clear definition of (…) what we are changing, which investments should be slightly changed to make them more reasonable, to fit in by 2026, and which ones don’t make sense,” she explained.

Asked about possible disagreements between the government and Brussels about how the revised plan should look, Piotr Maciej Kaczyński, senior EU expert at the Bronisław Geremek Foundation, said he believed Warsaw would come to terms with the Commission.

Either changes will be made to the timeframe for implementing projects if more countries struggle to spend the money on time, or there will be changes to specific projects in the Polish recovery plan so that they are eligible for EU re-funding, Kaczyński told Euractiv.

“I remain optimistic that European taxpayers’ money will not be wasted. In this respect, Poland has always been a shining example,” he added.

(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | Euractiv.pl)

Read more with Euractiv

EU Socialists revise China stance, now eye ‘strong’ ties with UK

The European Socialists group's final draft electoral manifesto, obtained by Euractiv, reshuffled its foreign policy priorities while adding various measures to support the agricultural sector amid protests across the continent.