The social pressure was so intense that it was impossible to simply abandon the CPK airport project. Instead, it had to be taken over. However, what we are getting from Donald Tusk is not a revitalized CPK, but rather PFD (Propaganda for Dummies).
Keeping Chopin Airport operational in Warsaw does not create a new hub but rather something extra: leaving noise and pollution in the heart of Warsaw while depriving the new airport of the most lucrative flights, because given a choice, every wealthy individual prefers to fly directly to the capital.
Contrary to what some commentators claim, this is in no way an inclusive project. Firstly, the reduction of the rail component excludes several target cities and regions, including traditionally right-leaning areas like the Lubelskie and Podkarpackie regions. Secondly, if it is supposed to be a high-speed rail connecting major cities to Warsaw within 100 minutes, it will not stop in smaller towns. Furthermore, cities too far from the central route, like Szczecin or Rzeszów, have been excluded because they do not fit into the propagandistic slogan “Poland in 100 minutes.”
What is worse, the project effectively becomes “Warsaw in 100 minutes for our own.” Someone wanting to travel from Szczecin to Rzeszów quickly would need to travel to Poznań or Gdańsk, then to Warsaw, then from Warsaw to Krakow, and finally from Krakow to Rzeszów — certainly a different journey than Szczecin-CPK-Rzeszów, as it was planned before.
By calling the project “megalopolis” and subordinating it to the interests of Warsaw and a few large cities, Donald Tusk also returns to the unfortunate metropolitan-diffusion ideology from his previous tenure, which was a nice name for a policy of funding only large cities, preferably those where the government has the strongest support, dooming the Polish “eastern wall” to vegetative status.
The schedule, which only allows for building permits by the end of 2026 and limits Baranów’s capacity to 34 million passengers, is also troubling. Finally, completing the project only by 2032 — after two terms from now — makes it even more politically sensitive. In this form, it is also a step back from cooperation with private investors, who had joined a project that involved phasing out Warsaw’s Chopin Airport.
Thus, Wednesday’s news involving the meeting between the head of Vinci Airports and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, along with the announcement of a hub in Budapest, is no coincidence. Orbán certainly won’t take eight years to build it and won’t delay two years to get a building permit. Unfortunately, what Donald Tusk has announced is not a plan. It’s a sham.
