Brussels seeks court order to stop Polish road

POLAND: The European Commission has sought a court order to prevent Poland from ordering building work to resume on a motorway…

POLAND:The European Commission has sought a court order to prevent Poland from ordering building work to resume on a motorway through a national park.

In an application to Europe's highest court yesterday, the EU executive said the road would cause irreversible damage to the Rospuda Valley, a protected area of primeval forest. It asked the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to take "urgent action" to prevent the Polish authorities from resuming planned work on the road on August 1st.

"It is regrettable that Poland has now decided to go ahead with the construction of a new road through Rospuda Valley," said environment commissioner Stavros Dimas, who initiated a separate ECJ legal case against Poland in March to halt the work. "I would hope that Poland will reconsider its decision before irreparable damage is done."

The proposed 17.1km Augustow bypass would involve building an expressway through the Rospuda river valley, an area that forms part of the EU's Natura 2000 network of protected sites. Poland argues that the project is of overriding interest on road safety grounds. In February it gave the green light to contractors to begin work, which was subsequently halted by the authorities during the bird breeding season.

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Polish transport minister Jerzy Polaczek described the commission's action as "bizarre" yesterday and confirmed the contractors were ready to restart work. But he said the government would study the EU complaint before making a final decision.

A commission spokeswoman said it would be unprecedented for a member state to go ahead with such work in defiance of an EU order granted by the ECJ. "This is uncharted territory. We have not had a case like that before," she said.

However, the commission has clashed with EU states such as Spain and Romania in the past over construction projects that could hurt the environment.

The commission is also challenging the Government's decision to continue work on the M3 motorway close to the Hill of Tara. However, the commission spokeswoman said the two cases had little in common. "The problem with the Hill of Tara case is that the Government do not want to do a second impact assessment before restarting work," said the spokeswoman, who said it was unlikely in this case that the commission would seek an ECJ injunction.

This is only the third time that the commission has had to ask the court to issue a temporary injunction in the environment field to prevent a state from defying an order. In 2006 it asked the ECJ to intervene in an Italian case involving the hunting of birds and in March this year it asked the court to prevent Poland from executing an afforestation plan designed to compensate for the Rospuda project.