Germany feels threatened by Polish investment and does not wish to see its neighbor succeed, preferring it to remain as some sort of open-air museum, Poland’s former Prime Minister Beata Szydło has claimed after reports of German lawmakers seeking to penalize the country for deepening the Oder River.
Sergey Lagodinsky, an MEP from Germany’s co-governing Green Party, has announced he will appeal to the European Commission to complain about Poland’s desire to expand its infrastructure on the river that borders Germany.
In response, Szydło, now serving as an MEP for Poland’s governing Law and Justice (PiS) party, wrote that “Germany would most like to see Poland as something like an open-air museum or a reserve.”
“Germans do not like Polish investments, on the Oder, in Świnoujście, and in many other places. They want European funds to be taken away from Poland if they are spent differently than Berlin wishes,” Szydło posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, also highlighting that Lagodinsky was born in Russia.
Earlier, Lagodinsky, in a conversation with Berlin radio station RBB, announced that he would appeal to the European Commission to launch infringement proceedings against the Polish government. The reason is the work being conducted on the Oder to widen the river and improve navigation.
Poland plans to carry out work to regulate the course of the river on the Polish-German border for the river to become a transportation route. Currently, the Oder is full of shallows, and the waterway constantly changes. In recent years, there have been increasingly long periods of water shortage. The Polish government has long wanted to change this and plans to deepen and expand the Oder as a waterway for inland shipping.
According to the Russian-born German politician, supported by German environmental organizations, this poses a threat to the natural environment. If Poland, as an EU member country, does not change its behavior, it should pay a severe penalty,” Lagodinsky argued.
