The European Union allows Member States to obtain funds from the sale of CO2 emission allowances. The revenues from this are considerable, since 2013 the Polish budget has already received PLN 82 billion in this way. Record-breaking, according to “Rzeczpospolita”, were in 2021 and 2022 – then they gave PLN 25.3 and 23.0 billion, respectively. In the first eight months of this year, they generated PLN 14.8 billion.
The funds are not a gift, they are to serve a specific purpose – energy transformation. This should be particularly important for Poland, because the predominant source of energy is coal. We not only consume it, but also extract it. Money to transform a significant part of our economy into a green one is certainly needed.
The analyzes of the daily show, however, that the government treats the money obtained from the sale of CO2 emission allowances with quite a lot of freedom. And so, in 2022, PLN 9.4 billion was transferred to the Price Difference Payment Fund. Behind this complicated name is a compensation mechanism, i.e. freezing energy prices at the level of 2022, before the shock caused mainly by the war. Slightly less, i.e. PLN 9 billion, was transferred to the COVID-19 Prevention Fund. Paradoxically, this source was used to finance, among others, allowances for the purchase of … coal.
In 2023, PLN 11 billion from the sale of allowances went to patch budget holes, and to be more specific, it simply went to the state budget.
Poland gets the money, but what does it do with it?
A light hand to spend funds that should be used to transform the Polish economy has its formal justification. Poland, like other countries, does not have to tell the EU about the exact distribution of funds, it only has to describe the use of 50 percent of the funds. amounts obtained. He has a lot of freedom here.
– So we have the possibility of a lot of voluntary and creative accounting – says Marcin Kowalczyk from the WWF Polska Foundation, an expert on financing transformation, former climate negotiator. – In fact, PLN 23 billion, which went to the budget in 2022, did not go directly to the needs of the energy transformation. In the report to the European Commission, however, the government showed spending 50 percent. funds for purposes allowed by the EU ETS directive, but they came from other sources – explains Marcin Kowalczyk from the WWF Polska Foundation, an expert on financing transformation, in an interview with the daily.
What exactly did the funds go to? This, perhaps, we will never know. The COVID-19 Counteracting Fund mentioned above is completely beyond the control of the parliament. Just like other vehicles similar to it, thanks to which the state’s debt is taken out of the central budget.
– Various expenses are financed from this fund and it is difficult to assess what these funds were used for, because the fund is beyond parliamentary control – sums up Kowalczyk.
Source: Gazeta
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