Prime Minister Morawiecki, speaking at a conference dedicated to the Polish-Ukrainian partnership in building energy security in the future, drew attention to the actions of the PO-PSL government – and Tusk himself – that have strengthened our country’s dependence on Russian energy resources increase, in particular oil and gas.
His team’s “top performance” was the proposal in the fall of 2010 to extend the gas contract with Russia until 2037, and only the strong protest of the then opposition (Law and Justice deputies), as well as the intervention of the European officials of the Commission, resulted in the final decision to extend the contract until 2022.
That is why Prime Minister Morawiecki graphically compared the former prime minister to a horse in a mine, which, over the years of his rule, stubbornly dragged Poland towards complete energy dependence on Putin.
Close cooperation with Russia from the Tusk government
Let us remind you that two weeks ago, at a press conference, the president of the Orlen group, Daniel Obajtek, announced that Poland paid an astronomical amount of about PLN 700 billion for oil and gas imported from Russia during the reign of Donald Tusk , i.e. the value of more than two state budgets from the period of his rule (the expenditure of the state budget in 2015 was about PLN 330 billion).
For example, during 8 years of its close cooperation with Russia, the PO-PSL government provided an astronomical amount of more than $200 billion to Putin’s “war machine” (the average dollar exchange rate during this period ranged from PLN 3 to PLN 3.5) .
In addition, during the 8 years of PO-PSL rule, nothing has been done to limit the imports of oil and gas from Russia and gradually replace them with imports of these raw materials from other directions, although it was already clear to everyone that our eastern neighbor could use energy sources as “political weapons”.
Let us also not forget that the Law and Justice government came to power in a situation where oil imports from Russia were as high as 90 percent. of our demand, while the imported gas came entirely from this country.
But since the late fall of 2015, this government has taken several actions that have made it possible to annually reduce oil and gas imports from Russia and replace them with imports of these raw materials from other countries.
And as I said, oil imports from Russia in 2015 were 90 percent. question, it was already 68% in 2018, 61% in 2019, 40% in 2022, and due to the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the introduction of EU sanctions, it was only 10% in January 2023, and in February this in zero percent year.
The last contract Orlen had with the Russian company Tatneft until the end of 2024 could have ended if the EC also imposed an embargo on Russian oil imports via oil pipelines, but because that has not happened so far, the contract has been terminated by Russian side, blocking supplies through the “Friendship” pipeline (Orlen’s unilateral termination of the contract would mean paying for deliveries until the end of the contract and no oil being collected).
In turn, the Law and Justice government has spent years preparing Poland for independence from Russian gas supplies, hence the concept of building an LNG terminal in Świnoujście initiated by the late. President Lech Kaczyński, completed in 2016 and currently expanded to 8.3 billion m3, construction of the Baltic Pipe with a capacity of 10 billion m3, gas interconnectors in Lithuania and Slovakia for 3 billion m3 and 4 billion m3 respectively, as well as expansion of own production.
When Russia blocked supplies to Poland through the Yamal gas pipeline at the end of April last year as a result of Putin’s decree on the need to pay for Russian gas in rubles, Poland was prepared for this and, despite the opposition’s pessimistic views, even in the In winter, the gas storage facilities in our country were still more than 90% full. (Now, almost at the end of winter, that is even 72 percent).
Although we still used Russian gas from Germany, reverse flow on the Yamal gas pipeline, the blockade of gas supply to this country by Russia meant that we no longer buy from Russian gas.
For example, during the 7 years of the rule of the United Right, it was possible to move away from complete dependence on Russian raw materials, while during the 8 years of the PO-PSL rule, nothing was done in this matter, on the contrary, measures were taken taken to deepen dependency.
After all, this was the nature of the postponement of the construction of the LNG terminal in Świnoujście by three years (the investment was due to start in 2008, which only started in spring 2011), as well as the abandonment of the construction of the Baltic Pipeline gas pipeline (it was the second resignation, the first time the government of Leszek Miller in 2001) or the above proposal to extend the gas contract with Russia for as much as 25 years.
Source: wPolityce