According to an analysis by business consultancy CRIDO, a total of 43 out of 56 investments within Poland’s recovery plan may not be implemented by the end of August 2026, leading to them not being funded by EU funds.
Numerous projects included in the country’s recovery plan have not even started, with Łukasz Kościjańczuk of CRIDO stating:
“Then, Poland will not receive EU refinancing [for those investments] since the condition for the payments is the completion of an investment.”
According to CRIDO’s analysis, 43 of the 56 investments included in the recovery plan are at risk of default or exclusion from the plan, with no chance of being finalised by the 31 August 2026 deadline.
Two years have been lost.
Due to the European Commission’s concerns about the rule of law in Poland under the previous Law and Justice (PiS, ECR)-led government, Poland’s reconstruction and cohesion funds have so far been frozen, delaying the plan’s implementation.
Last Friday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced in Warsaw that Brussels would allocate 137 billion euros of Poland’s allocation from the EU’s Next Generation Recovery Fund and Cohesion Fund.
The Commission’s decision was a response to reforms, mainly in the judiciary, implemented by the current government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, which were aimed at restoring the rule of law and democratic order in the country.
The Polish National Recovery Plan (KPO) comprises 56 investments and 55 reforms aimed at reinforcing the Polish economy after the COVID-19 pandemic. The EU’s total allocation to Poland for the implementation of the plan amounts to €59.8bn, of which €25.27bn is in the form of grants and €34.54bn is issued as loans.
Component D of the plan, which deals with health care, is the most affected by the situation, as 98 per cent of investments in this component are at risk.
Their total cost amounts to 19.3 billion zlotys (€4.5 billion).
Kościjańczuk believes the plan should be revised to include half of the investments, although the process of preparing the revision and getting the changes approved in Brussels could take up to several months.
The revision proposal is currently being prepared by the Polish Ministry of Finance and Regional Policy and should be finalised and submitted to Prime Minister Donald Tusk by the end of the month, Minister Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz announced.
“There will be a clear definition of […] what we are changing, which investments should be slightly changed to make them more reasonable, to fit in by 2026, and which ones don’t make sense.”
Piotr Maciej Kaczyński, senior EU expert at the Bronisław Geremek Foundation, expressed confidence that Warsaw would come to an agreement with the Commission. He argued that either changes would be made to project deadlines if more countries tried to spend the money on time, or changes would be made to specific projects in Poland’s reconstruction plan to make them eligible for EU re-funding.
I remain optimistic that European taxpayers’ money will not be wasted. In this respect, Poland has always been a shining example.
