Speaking at the site of the planned new waterway in the north of the country, President Andrzej Duda said on Saturday that the project “will help strengthen Poland’s sovereignty and enhance its independence and freedom.”
“We will no longer have to ask the Russians … but will have our own waterway,” he added.
Duda told reporters that Poland was determined to push ahead with large infrastructure projects such as the new canal as it emerges from the coronavirus pandemic.
“We will not discontinue, limit, scale back or abandon” such projects because they are a driver of growth in the time of the coronavirus crisis, Duda said.
As the economy struggles to recover from the disruption, projects such as the new shipping canal and a massive hub airport planned in central Poland could help create hundreds of new jobs, the president also said.
Duda was talking to reporters at a joint news conference with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Maritime Affairs and Inland Navigation Minister Marek Gróbarczyk.
The conference was held at Skowronki, in Poland’s northern Pomerania region, a site where builders are beginning work on the new canal not far from the Russian border.
President Andrzej Duda (centre), Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (left), and Maritime Affairs and Inland Navigation Minister Marek Gróbarczyk (right) hold a joint news conference at the site of the planned new shipping canal on Saturday. Photo: PAP/Adam Warżawa
The Polish government in October inked a huge deal with a consortium of private firms to dig the strategic canal between the Vistula Lagoon and the Bay of Gdańsk, a project hailed as a boon to the nation’s sovereignty.
Under the deal, a Polish-Belgian consortium is expected to build the new waterway for PLN 992 million (EUR 230 million, USD 252 million) by 2022.
The new canal between the Vistula Lagoon and the Bay of Gdańsk will be around 1.3 kilometres long and five metres deep, officials have said.
It will be built by digging through the Vistula Spit, a narrow strip of land that separates the bay from the lagoon on Polish territory.
The aim is to allow deep-draft vessels to enter Poland’s Elbląg seaport without passing through the Strait of Baltiysk in Russia's Kaliningrad exclave.
The plan to build the canal requires the construction of new water routes, an artificial island and civil engineering and road infrastructure.
Officials have estimated the total cost of the project at almost PLN 2 billion.
Poland’s conservative leader Jarosław Kaczyński said in October 2018 that the planned new canal near the Russian border would help enhance his country’s military as well as economic sovereignty.
Kaczyński, who heads Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, said in September 2018 that the plan to build the canal showed that Russia, Poland’s former communist-era overlord, could no longer dictate to Warsaw what to do.
Meanwhile, British experts will help design a planned mega-airport in central Poland under a memorandum of understanding signed by officials from the two countries this month.
Poland’s president and prime minister on Thursday urged stepped-up investment in Europe to stimulate economies and help them recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
(gs)
Source: PAP