Thursday 19 November 2015

Ministry of Energy - will the new ministry solve the current energy problems?

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The Poles elected new government this fall, as a result of a parliamentary elections. The new government has new ideas on how to govern the country - one of them is the creation of a ministry dedicated to the energy matters (what at the moment is part of the competences of the Ministry of Economy). What's the opinion of Polish media on this idea? 

It is difficult to not have an impression that the decision of establishment of a new ministry is not only dictated by practical considerations (Poland works on strengthening its energy independence and the implementation of more extensive electricity production from renewables), but to some extent, it is a marketing goal. The party that won the elections this fall, PiS (Prawo I Sprawiedliwosc, in English “Law and Justice”, national-conservative party), certainly wants to deal with matters that have been left in an open status by the previous government and which are causing social unrest. Some of these tasks include, for example, the solution to the problem of coal mining industry (we talked about it several times on PEM Analytics). The problem of coal mining is not only very important for the energy sector in Poland, but it also causes distress among the Poles. Coal mines employ majority of the inhabitants of the south-west part of the country and the bankruptcy of the mines might cause rapid increase in the unemployment rate.

PiS' plan to create the Ministry of Energy (or as some specialists in Poland refer “Super Ministry of Energy”, considering the scope of the responsibilities the ministry would cover) would impose change to the Act of 4 September 1997 describing functioning of the governmental administration. The act currently in power defines the scope of government departments and ministers in charge of the property department. The Act distinguishes around 30 departments, but it does not include power/energy ministry.

Accordingly, from the theoretical point of view, it is impossible to appoint a minister of energy, as the ministry itself does not exist at the moment. However, the minister of energy has been assigned, but without given department. The future Minister of Energy will be Krzysztof Tchórzewski, educated as an electric engineer, who worked for many years at the Power Supply Department of the Polish Railways. After 1990, he was an active politician in the region of Siedlce.

Numerous Polish commentators point out the meaninglessness of the creation of new ministry, based mainly on the potential division of the responsibilities. It is certain that the areas related to climate change, environmental protection and control of national resources will remain the competency of the Ministry of the Environment. The control over the most important energy companies will be still the responsibility of the State Treasury. Summarizing, it seems that the new ministry was supposed to cover most of the competence of the existing three ministers relating to the energy matters: Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Environment and State Treasure. Ultimately, Ministry of Energy will have exactly the same competences as it did so far (being the department of the Ministry of Economy), but with the separate body.







In Polish:


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