Poland receives $6.7 billion in EU funds, says minister

Warsaw: Poland has received a transfer of 27 billion zlotys ($6.72 billion) in European Union funds, the country’s development funds and regional policy minister said on Monday.

Poland’s new pro-European coalition government has moved to resolve a row with Brussels over the rule of law that had blocked access to billions in funding.

Its zloty has been central and Eastern Europe’s best performing currency this year.

“PLN 27 billion – Poland has just received the largest transfer from the EU in the history of our membership,” Katarzyna Pelczynska-Nalecz wrote on social media platform X.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had announced in February that Warsaw would gain access to up to 137 billion euros in funds after the new government began implementing reforms it said would restore judicial independence in Poland.

Pelczynska-Nalecz told a news conference that Warsaw would submit its second and third applications for funds by the end of August, with the aim of receiving the next tranche of funding, which could be as much as 10 billion euros, before the end of the year.

She said Poland planned to spend 1.6 billion zlotys on clean air initiatives, 720 million on expanding broadband internet coverage, 400 million on roads and railways, 250 million on shortening and diversifying supply chains in agriculture and 200 million on childcare facilities.

The funds include nearly 60 billion euros designed to help EU countries bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic and with the energy transition, consisting of 25.3 billion euros in grants and 34.5 billion euros in cheap loans.

With a little more than two years left to spend the European Union recovery money, Poland is focused on making the most of the smaller grants leg of the programme, while treating cheap loans as a fallback component, a senior official said.