A spat about some dirty coal

It seems that the Poles are in dispute with the EU in general and the Czech Republic in particular about extending the size and life of a large, open-cast lignite mine in southern Poland, very close to the Czech border. A matter brought to my attention by the article at reference 3, but with plenty of coverage turned up by Bing elsewhere.

Wikipedia suggests that coal is bad from a climate point of view and that lignite is the worst sort of coal. The catch is that there is a lot of it about, with huge reserves in Russia, Australia, Germany and the US, among other places. Usually mined in huge open-cast mines and usually used for power generation. Knocking out huge amounts of greenhouse gases on the way.

The image of the mine in question lifted from reference 2. Something of a blot on the landscape - but it does result in a lot of power. There is also the question of it draining drinking water out of the nearby Czech Republic.

The EU has polices and laws about all this sort of thing and it seems that the Poles are in breach.

I associate to the words of a colleague, many years ago now, about tax. To the effect that there was no right answer about who pays what tax, no right answer that is in the sense of equity or morals. So all the decent man in the street could do was to stick to the rules, if possible to the spirit of the rules. To pay what was due without going to unseemly lengths to reduce that liability. In the hope and expectation that his elected government had written fair and reasonable rules.

So, in this case, we look to the Poles to stick to the European rules to which they have signed up. Signed up to in the largely justified hope of largesse from the south.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lignite.

Reference 2: https://www.yahoo.com/news/massive-polish-coal-mine-sparks-112729549.html.

Reference 3: Brussels in no rush to act on rule of law spat with Poland: Stalemate does have a financial impact on Warsaw - Valentina Pop\FT - 2021.

Reference 4: https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-09/cp210159en.pdf. The lawyers' take on it all. Quite hard for the layman to discern any links with the real world.