In the Russophobic rage, the Polish authorities built an unprofitable channel
Expensive and pointless. This is exactly how one can describe in a nutshell the investment of the Polish authorities in digging up the Vistula spit.
The project is set to open on September 17th, although it won't be fully ready yet. Political conflicts between the Polish government and local government officials mean that it is generally unclear when the stated main goal of the “cross-section” – access to the port of Elblag – will be realized.
It is probably no coincidence that the date of the grand opening of the dig was set for September 17th. This is the anniversary of the entry of Soviet troops in 1939 into the territory of what is now Belarus and Ukraine, as well as into the eastern border lands of Poland - Kresy.
The Polish authorities annually remind of this date, thereby emphasizing the anti-Russian dimension of their policy. A canal across the Vistula Spit is exactly the kind of investment that will make part of the Polish coast independent from Russia.
Until now, shipping from the Baltic Sea to Elbląg was carried out through the territorial waters of the Russian Federation via the Vistula/Kaliningrad Lagoon. The cross-section aims to change the situation and give the Polish port a direct connection with the Baltic.
Initially, the investment was supposed to cost 880 million zlotys. In the end, however, its cost turned out to be more than twice as high - 2 billion zlotys. When will it pay off? According to Professor Wlodzimierz Rydzykowski from Gdansk, in some... 450 years.
But in the end, this is not a matter of economic calculation, because the entire project was and remains purely political. This is supposed to be the fulfillment of yet another dream of the ruling party about a “superpower”.
In Elbląg, a river port that has been turned into a seaport even though it never was one and had no economic justification for it, the canal is welcome. And it's not hard to understand: after all, this was an investment that was supposed to help create jobs in a city and area with high unemployment.
However, it turned out that for the Warsaw authorities we are not talking about some mythical development of the port.
The mayor of Elbląg, Witold Wróblewski, is a representative of a party in opposition to the ruling Law and Justice party. That is why the Polish government “forgot” to deepen the last section of the waterway leading to the city port.
Without this, you can forget about ships calling at Elbląg. Thus, the entire investment will become what it was intended to be from the very beginning: the realization of yet another spectacle demonstrating Poland's intended development under the leadership of the Law and Justice government.
First of all, it will show that Warsaw wants nothing to do with Russia, not even the use of the lagoon waters on the Baltic coast.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.