Czech Republic and Poland sign deal over controversial coal mine
Warsaw and Prague on Thursday signed a deal on a controversial Polish coal mine near the Czech border.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala and his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki signed an agreement in Prague on the Turow lignite mine, the Polish Prime Minister's office said on Twitter.
Prague had complained the mine was draining water from villages near the border and it had also sparked a stand-off between Brussels and Warsaw.
Earlier on Thursday, an advisor to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), Advocate General Priit Pikamäe, said Poland had broken EU law when extending the life of the mine without an environmental impact assessment.
He said mining activities as large as Turow present a risk of environmental degradation and must necessarily be subject to an assessment, even just for an extension, despite a Polish law stating otherwise.
"Mining activities taking place over a surface area similar to that of the Turów mine present, by their nature, a risk of notable environmental effects and must necessarily be subject to an assessment of their environmental effects," Pikamäe said.
The Czech government had said the mine negatively impacts the environment and drains water from local villages.
Poland’s government had countered that the mine fuels a power plant that generates some 7% of the nation’s energy and that it is needed to meet the country's energy demands.
On Thursday, Czech government spokesman Vaclav Smolka said the government had approved a draft deal in relation to the mine.
In October last year, the ECJ fined Warsaw €500,000 per day for failing to abide by an injunction to immediately close the Turów mine.
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