POLAND: GENERAL METADATA

Data documentation

General notes

The fiscal year in Poland normally coincides with the calendar year. Corporations, however, may choose a different starting point of the fiscal year.


Producer Support Estimate

Most of Polish state aid to the energy sector is apportioned to the coal industry. Poland’s heavy reliance on coal stems from both a large domestic endowment of this fuel and the fact that it used to have a limited access to foreign-exchange earnings with which it could have imported other fuels during the communist period. Because coal-mining was considered a strategic sector, the state subsidised the production of coal, providing various social benefits to coal miners and regulating coal prices to keep them low.

With the economic transition of the early 1990s, the state envisioned to transform coal mines into self-reliant commercial companies that would adapt to the conditions of a free-market economy. The continued policy of price controls, however, meant that the industry had a very limited potential for economic growth and hence, needed further state assistance.

All subsequent plans for restructuring the coal sector throughout the 1990s supported capacity adjustment, shutting down unprofitable mines and reducing employment to levels that would improve productivity. The overarching objective of those programmes was thus to make the coal-mining sector profitable.

These programmes proved ineffective due to the lack of consensus between the government and the trade unions. This changed in 1998 as the new government, supported by Solidarno?? (the biggest Polish trade union), devised a coal-mining restructuring plan, the Reforma górnictwa w?gla kamiennego w Polsce w latach 1998 - 2002. The plan provided additional funding for social schemes and expressed a commitment to write-off the debt which the mines have accumulated over the years. Another plan adopted in 2003 - the Program restrukturyzacji górnictwa w?gla kamiennego w Polsce w latach 2003-2006 - pursued similar objectives.

When Poland joined the European Union in 2004, state aid became subject to the Community rules. In practice, this development meant that coal-mining restructuring plans would have to be compatible with the common market, and that the European Commission would need to approve any state-aid scheme before it reached recipients.

The Council of Ministers has so far adopted two documents regarding the restructuring of the sector: the Restrukturyzacja górnictwa w?gla kamiennego w latach 2004-2006 oraz strategia na lata 2007-2010, which was then replaced by Strategia dzia?alno?ci górnictwa w?gla kamiennego w Polsce w latach 2007-2015. Poland does not provide subsidies to coal-mining under article 5-3 (current production aid). All current subsidies therefore result from article 7 (aid to cover exceptional costs) and are associated either with mine decommissioning or investment aid to operating mines (for up to 30% of the total investments made). The former measures are mainly allocated to the GSSE as most of them do not increase current production or consumption of coal. The latter are allocated to the PSE since they directly support coal producers.

The coal-mining sector underwent major restructuring through a series of management mergers and mine closures. At the beginning of the transition, the industry comprised of 71 independent mines. In 1993, the management of hard-coal production was taken over by seven joint-stock holding companies that held the assets of 60 mines. Four mines remained stand-alone enterprises, while the rest was shut down on unprofitability grounds.

The Polish coal-mining sector now comprises 31 mines grouped into seven joint-stock holding companies and is dominated by three state-owned firms: Europe’s largest hard-coal company, Kompania W?glowa S.A. (KW), Katowicki Holding W?glowy S.A. (KHW) and Jastrz?bska Spó?ka W?glowa S.A. In 2000, two state-owned liquidation companies, Spó?ka Restrukturyzacji Kopal? S.A. (SRK) and Bytomska Spó?ka Restrukturyzacji Kopal? Sp. z o.o. (BSRK), were given responsibility to manage mine decommissioning. Since 2006, only two companies in Poland have been benefitting from state aid: KW and KHW. Aid is also being envisaged for the SRK (BSRK was consolidated into SRK in 2009).