Business leaders call on Polish government not to abandon “mega-airport” project
A group of leading Polish business figures have appealed to the government not to abandon its predecessors’ plans to build a new “mega-airport” and transport hub near Warsaw. They say it can “become a great driving force of the Polish economy”.
The project, known as the Central Communication Port (CPK), was a flagship programme of the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party. However, the new coalition government led by Donald Tusk that took power in December has expressed reservations about moving forward with the plans.
Plans to build a new „mega-airport” in Poland, a flagship project of the former ruling party, have been put on hold by the new government.@jacek_plaza looks at the economic and political arguments surrounding the project, and whether it will go ahead https://t.co/a36GcUNRwl
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) February 12, 2024
This week, the Council of Polish Global Businesspeople (RPPG) – which is made up of the heads of leading Polish firms such as Synthos, Fakro, Oshee, Maspex and Columbus Energy – published an open letter to Tusk in support of CPK.
“Based on the business experience of firms gathered in the RPPG, we believe that the CPK project has a chance to become a great driving force of the Polish economy,” they wrote.
“Its implementation will lead to the strengthening of a number of branches of the Polish economy, while at the same time being an important investment for sustainable development based on care for the environment, but also for increasing the wealth of Poles,” continued the letter.
The business leaders emphasised that CPK should not be viewed as “a political undertaking by one of the actors on the Polish political scene, but as a concept that has been proposed and analysed for many years”.
While the idea of a large new airport in Poland has been discussed for over a decade, the idea was only substantially developeded under the rule of PiS, which was in power from 2015 to 2023. It envisioned a major new hub airport that would be one of the world’s largest, serving up to 100 million passengers annually.
Last year, a design concept for CPK commissioned from Foster + Partners and Buro Happold was unveiled. Soon after, a consortium of France’s Vinci Airports and Australia-based IFM Global Infrastructure Fund were chosen as investment partners, committing €1.8 billion to the project.
However, after Tusk’s government replaced PiS in office, the head of CPK was fired, its supervisory board was replaced, and an audit into the project was launched. A number of figures from the new ruling coalition expressed doubt that the project would proceed as planned.
The head of a planned new “mega-airport” and transport hub in central Poland – a flagship project of the former PiS government – has been fired and the new government has launched an audit of the plans https://t.co/ymyYYwvxra
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) January 22, 2024
Meanwhile, a day before the RPPG’s open letter was published this week, plans were announced to expand Warsaw’s existing largest airport, Chopin. Its capacity would be increased from the current 20 million passengers a year to 30 million by 2029.
That led some PiS figures to accuse the new government of effectively killing off plans for a new mega-airport. “The CPK project has been officially buried,” wrote the party’s deputy leader, Beata Szydło. “Tusk is not here to develop Poland. He is here to bring Poland down.”
However, the government’s plenipotentiary for CPK, Maciej Lasek, called such claims “conscious disinformation”. He told financial news website Money.pl that “all work [on CPK] is still in progress”.
In a further interview with the Rzeczpospolita daily, Lasek said that “of course we will build CPK…but not in the way planned by PiS, which wanted to spend billions without proper preparation and planning, citing populist arguments about [national] dignity instead of specific calculations”.
Projekt budowy Centralnego Portu Komunikacyjnego nie zostanie wygaszony. Ale nierealne jest, aby #lotnisko — czyli pierwszy element tego węzła komunikacyjnego ruszyło w 2028 roku#CPK #MaciejLasek
Kliknij w zdjęcie, aby przeczytać więcej🔽https://t.co/k4WtJsQ3qF
— Rzeczpospolita Biznes (@RPEkonomia) April 17, 2024
Speaking today, deputy prime minister Krzysztof Gawkowski told Polsat News that the government’s audit of CPK is still underway and, until it is completed, “it is not possible to decide what will happen next with this investment”.
“[We need to] know what the financing looks like, whether the funds are secured, where we have money that was spent, how we can use all the infrastructure, i.e. railways combined with aviation, to create a hub in Poland,” he added. “If these figures are positive, the project will continue.”
On Friday, President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally and supporter of CPK, spoke in favour of the project. “Don’t listen to those who ridicule investments,” he warned. “Don’t be fooled by the idea that [the CPK project] can be replaced by several smaller airports.”
“Today we need to implement large transport, trade and tourism investments so that we can travel from Poland to the whole world, so that we do not have to fly to Frankfurt, London, Paris or Amsterdam to change to a bigger plane and fly to another continent,” he added.
Prezydent @AndrzejDuda o wielkich inwestycjach ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/IoqVsS7NYb
— Kancelaria Prezydenta (@prezydentpl) May 3, 2024
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Main image credit: CPK (press materials)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
