By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Poland will have to pay a 500,000-euro ($585,550) daily penalty to the European Commission for defying an earlier court order to halt operations at its Turow open-pit lignite mine, Europe’s top court said on Monday.
Coal-reliant Poland is at loggerheads with the Czech Republic which says the disputed mine is damaging communities over the border.
Prague subsequently took its grievance to the European Commission which last year started legal proceedings against Poland, saying that Warsaw had breached EU law.
The Czech Republic also took its case to the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), Europe’s highest, and won judges backing for a temporary order to Poland to stop Turow’s operations until a final judgment.
It also asked for a 5-million-euro daily penalty payment to be levied on Poland. The court on Monday agreed with its request but set a much lower sum.
“Poland is ordered to pay the European Commission a daily penalty payment of €500 000 because it has not ceased lignite extraction activities at Turów mine,” the CJEU said.
“Such a measure appears necessary in order to strengthen the effectiveness of the interim measures decided upon in the order of 21 May 2021 and to deter that member state from delaying bringing its conduct into line with that order,” judges said.
($1 = 0.8539 euros)
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee)
