EU Warns of Legal Action If Poland Continues With Highway

The European Commission said it would resume court action against Poland if the country goes ahead with the construction of a highway through an environmentally fragile forest. Poland said building will restart Aug. 1.

Poland announced on Tuesday that work would continue on Aug. 1 on the controversial Via Baltica highway through a section of virgin forest in the northeast Rospuda Valley, near the border with Lithuania.

However, European Commission spokeswoman on environmental affairs, Barbara Helfferich, said the EU executive would not hesitate to take Poland to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) once again to get the road work halted.

…Unique habitat The Rospuda marshlands and surrounding area are the world’s most important breeding grounds for the endangered aquatic warbler. The region is also home to rare spotted eagles, lynx and wolves.

The planned “Via Baltica” highway, however, is intended as a new, major corridor for the Baltic states meant to ease traffic and thus trade between eastern and western Europe.

To cut down on traffic flow near the town of Augustow, Polish transport officials foresee building a bypass road that would cut right through the Rospuda River valley. EU authorities consider the area to be “a unique wetland system.”

(Poland has 31 orchid species, 19 of which can be found in the Rospuda Valley).

 

(DW; Image:Piotr Malczewski)

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